Chapter: While the waters of Venice and the ruins of Rome were sunning themselves
for the pleasure of the Dorrit family, and were daily being sketched
out of all earthly proportion, lineament, and likeness, by travelling
pencils innumerable, the firm of Doyce and Clennam hammered away in
Bleeding Heart Yard, and the vigorous clink of iron upon iron was heard
there through the working hours.

The younger partner had, by this time, brought the business into sound
trim; and the elder, left free to follow his own ingenious devices, had
done much to enhance the character of the factory. As an ingenious man,
     he had necessarily to encounter every discouragement that the ruling
     powers for a length of time had been able by any means to put in the way
     of this class of culprits; but that was only reasonable self-defence in
     the powers, since How to do it must obviously be regarded as the natural
     and mortal enemy of How not to do it. In this was to be found the basis
     of the wise system, by tooth and nail upheld by the Circumlocution
     Office, of warning every ingenious British subject to be ingenious
     at his peril: of harassing him, obstructing him, inviting robbers (by
             making his remedy uncertain, and expensive) to plunder him, and at the
     best of confiscating his property after a short term of enjoyment, as
     though invention were on a par with felony. The system had uniformly
     found great favour with the Barnacles, and that was only reasonable,
     too; for one who worthily invents must be in earnest, and the Barnacles
     abhorred and dreaded nothing half so much. That again was very
     reasonable; since in a country suffering under the affliction of a great
     amount of earnestness, there might, in an exceeding short space of time,
     be not a single Barnacle left sticking to a post.

     Daniel Doyce faced his condition with its pains and penalties attached
     to it, and soberly worked on for the work's sake. Clennam cheering him
     with a hearty co-operation, was a moral support to him, besides doing
     good service in his business relation. The concern prospered, and the
     partners were fast friends.

     But Daniel could not forget the old design of so many years. It was not
     in reason to be expected that he should; if he could have lightly
     forgotten it, he could never have conceived it, or had the patience and
     perseverance to work it out. So Clennam thought, when he sometimes
     observed him of an evening looking over the models and drawings, and
     consoling himself by muttering with a sigh as he put them away again,
     that the thing was as true as it ever was.

     To show no sympathy with so much endeavour, and so much disappointment,
     would have been to fail in what Clennam regarded as among the implied
     obligations of his partnership. A revival of the passing interest in
     the subject which had been by chance awakened at the door of the
     Circumlocution Office, originated in this feeling. He asked his partner
     to explain the invention to him; 'having a lenient consideration,' he
     stipulated, 'for my being no workman, Doyce.'

     'No workman?' said Doyce. 'You would have been a thorough workman if you
     had given yourself to it. You have as good a head for understanding such
     things as I have met with.'

     'A totally uneducated one, I am sorry to add,' said Clennam.

     'I don't know that,' returned Doyce, 'and I wouldn't have you say
     that. No man of sense who has been generally improved, and has improved
     himself, can be called quite uneducated as to anything. I don't
     particularly favour mysteries. I would as soon, on a fair and clear
     explanation, be judged by one class of man as another, provided he had
     the qualification I have named.'

     'At all events,' said Clennam--'this sounds as if we were exchanging
     compliments, but we know we are not--I shall have the advantage of as
     plain an explanation as can be given.'

     'Well!' said Daniel, in his steady even way,'I'll try to make it so.'

     He had the power, often to be found in union with such a character, of
     explaining what he himself perceived, and meant, with the direct force
     and distinctness with which it struck his own mind. His manner of
     demonstration was so orderly and neat and simple, that it was not easy
     to mistake him. There was something almost ludicrous in the complete
     irreconcilability of a vague conventional notion that he must be a
     visionary man, with the precise, sagacious travelling of his eye and
     thumb over the plans, their patient stoppages at particular points,
     their careful returns to other points whence little channels of
     explanation had to be traced up, and his steady manner of making
     everything good and everything sound at each important stage, before
     taking his hearer on a line's-breadth further. His dismissal of himself
     from his description, was hardly less remarkable. He never said, I
     discovered this adaptation or invented that combination; but showed the
     whole thing as if the Divine artificer had made it, and he had happened
     to find it; so modest he was about it, such a pleasant touch of respect
     was mingled with his quiet admiration of it, and so calmly convinced he
     was that it was established on irrefragable laws.

     Not only that evening, but for several succeeding evenings, Clennam was
     quite charmed by this investigation. The more he pursued it, and the
     oftener he glanced at the grey head bending over it, and the shrewd eye
     kindling with pleasure in it and love of it--instrument for probing his
     heart though it had been made for twelve long years--the less he could
     reconcile it to his younger energy to let it go without one effort more.
     At length he said:

     'Doyce, it came to this at last--that the business was to be sunk with
     Heaven knows how many more wrecks, or begun all over again?'

     'Yes,' returned Doyce, 'that's what the noblemen and gentlemen made of
     it after a dozen years.'

     'And pretty fellows too!' said Clennam, bitterly.

     'The usual thing!' observed Doyce. 'I must not make a martyr of myself,
     when I am one of so large a company.'

     'Relinquish it, or begin it all over again?' mused Clennam.

     'That was exactly the long and the short of it,' said Doyce.

     'Then, my friend,' cried Clennam, starting up and taking his
     work-roughened hand, 'it shall be begun all over again!'

     Doyce looked alarmed, and replied in a hurry--for him, 'No, no. Better
     put it by. Far better put it by. It will be heard of, one day. I can
     put it by. You forget, my good Clennam; I _have_ put it by. It's all at an
     end.'

     'Yes, Doyce,' returned Clennam, 'at an end as far as your efforts and
     rebuffs are concerned, I admit, but not as far as mine are. I am younger
     than you: I have only once set foot in that precious office, and I am
     fresh game for them. Come! I'll try them. You shall do exactly as you
     have been doing since we have been together. I will add (as I easily
             can) to what I have been doing, the attempt to get public justice done
     to you; and, unless I have some success to report, you shall hear no
     more of it.'

     Daniel Doyce was still reluctant to consent, and again and again urged
     that they had better put it by. But it was natural that he should
     gradually allow himself to be over-persuaded by Clennam, and should
     yield. Yield he did. So Arthur resumed the long and hopeless labour of
     striving to make way with the Circumlocution Office.

     The waiting-rooms of that Department soon began to be familiar with his
     presence, and he was generally ushered into them by its janitors much
     as a pickpocket might be shown into a police-office; the principal
     difference being that the object of the latter class of public business
     is to keep the pickpocket, while the Circumlocution object was to
     get rid of Clennam. However, he was resolved to stick to the Great
     Department; and so the work of form-filling, corresponding, minuting,
     memorandum-making, signing, counter-signing, counter-counter-signing,
     referring backwards and forwards, and referring sideways, crosswise, and
     zig-zag, recommenced.

     Here arises a feature of the Circumlocution Office, not previously
     mentioned in the present record. When that admirable Department got
     into trouble, and was, by some infuriated members of Parliament whom
     the smaller Barnacles almost suspected of labouring under diabolic
     possession, attacked on the merits of no individual case, but as an
     Institution wholly abominable and Bedlamite; then the noble or right
     honourable Barnacle who represented it in the House, would smite that
     member and cleave him asunder, with a statement of the quantity of
     business (for the prevention of business) done by the Circumlocution
     Office. Then would that noble or right honourable Barnacle hold in his
     hand a paper containing a few figures, to which, with the permission
     of the House, he would entreat its attention. Then would the inferior
     Barnacles exclaim, obeying orders,'Hear, Hear, Hear!' and 'Read!' Then
     would the noble or right honourable Barnacle perceive, sir, from this
     little document, which he thought might carry conviction even to the
     perversest mind (Derisive laughter and cheering from the Barnacle fry),
     that within the short compass of the last financial half-year, this
     much-maligned Department (Cheers) had written and received fifteen
     thousand letters (Loud cheers), had written twenty-four thousand minutes
     (Louder cheers), and thirty-two thousand five hundred and seventeen
     memoranda (Vehement cheering). Nay, an ingenious gentleman connected
     with the Department, and himself a valuable public servant, had done
     him the favour to make a curious calculation of the amount of stationery
     consumed in it during the same period. It formed a part of this same
     short document; and he derived from it the remarkable fact that the
     sheets of foolscap paper it had devoted to the public service would pave
     the footways on both sides of Oxford Street from end to end, and leave
     nearly a quarter of a mile to spare for the park (Immense cheering and
             laughter); while of tape--red tape--it had used enough to stretch, in
     graceful festoons, from Hyde Park Corner to the General Post Office.
     Then, amidst a burst of official exultation, would the noble or right
     honourable Barnacle sit down, leaving the mutilated fragments of the
     Member on the field. No one, after that exemplary demolition of him,
     would have the hardihood to hint that the more the Circumlocution Office
     did, the less was done, and that the greatest blessing it could confer
     on an unhappy public would be to do nothing.

     With sufficient occupation on his hands, now that he had this additional
     task--such a task had many and many a serviceable man died of before his
     day--Arthur Clennam led a life of slight variety. Regular visits to his
     mother's dull sick room, and visits scarcely less regular to Mr Meagles
     at Twickenham, were its only changes during many months.

     He sadly and sorely missed Little Dorrit. He had been prepared to miss
     her very much, but not so much. He knew to the full extent only through
     experience, what a large place in his life was left blank when her
     familiar little figure went out of it. He felt, too, that he must
     relinquish the hope of its return, understanding the family character
     sufficiently well to be assured that he and she were divided by a broad
     ground of separation. The old interest he had had in her, and her old
     trusting reliance on him, were tinged with melancholy in his mind: so
     soon had change stolen over them, and so soon had they glided into the
     past with other secret tendernesses.

     When he received her letter he was greatly moved, but did not the less
     sensibly feel that she was far divided from him by more than distance.
     It helped him to a clearer and keener perception of the place assigned
     him by the family. He saw that he was cherished in her grateful
     remembrance secretly, and that they resented him with the jail and the
     rest of its belongings.

     Through all these meditations which every day of his life crowded about
     her, he thought of her otherwise in the old way. She was his innocent
     friend, his delicate child, his dear Little Dorrit. This very change
     of circumstances fitted curiously in with the habit, begun on the night
     when the roses floated away, of considering himself as a much older man
     than his years really made him. He regarded her from a point of view
     which in its remoteness, tender as it was, he little thought would have
     been unspeakable agony to her. He speculated about her future destiny,
     and about the husband she might have, with an affection for her which
     would have drained her heart of its dearest drop of hope, and broken it.

     Everything about him tended to confirm him in the custom of looking on
     himself as an elderly man, from whom such aspirations as he had combated
     in the case of Minnie Gowan (though that was not so long ago either,
             reckoning by months and seasons), were finally departed. His relations
     with her father and mother were like those on which a widower son-in-law
     might have stood. If the twin sister who was dead had lived to pass away
     in the bloom of womanhood, and he had been her husband, the nature of
     his intercourse with Mr and Mrs Meagles would probably have been just
     what it was. This imperceptibly helped to render habitual the impression
     within him, that he had done with, and dismissed that part of life.

     He invariably heard of Minnie from them, as telling them in her letters
     how happy she was, and how she loved her husband; but inseparable from
     that subject, he invariably saw the old cloud on Mr Meagles's face. Mr
     Meagles had never been quite so radiant since the marriage as before.
     He had never quite recovered the separation from Pet. He was the same
     good-humoured, open creature; but as if his face, from being much turned
     towards the pictures of his two children which could show him only one
     look, unconsciously adopted a characteristic from them, it always had
     now, through all its changes of expression, a look of loss in it.

     One wintry Saturday when Clennam was at the cottage, the Dowager Mrs
     Gowan drove up, in the Hampton Court equipage which pretended to be the
     exclusive equipage of so many individual proprietors. She descended, in
     her shady ambuscade of green fan, to favour Mr and Mrs Meagles with a
     call.

     'And how do you both do, Papa and Mama Meagles?' said she, encouraging
     her humble connections. 'And when did you last hear from or about my
     poor fellow?'

     My poor fellow was her son; and this mode of speaking of him politely
     kept alive, without any offence in the world, the pretence that he had
     fallen a victim to the Meagles' wiles.

     'And the dear pretty one?' said Mrs Gowan. 'Have you later news of her
     than I have?'

     Which also delicately implied that her son had been captured by mere
     beauty, and under its fascination had forgone all sorts of worldly
     advantages.

     'I am sure,' said Mrs Gowan, without straining her attention on the
     answers she received, 'it's an unspeakable comfort to know they continue
     happy. My poor fellow is of such a restless disposition, and has been
     so used to roving about, and to being inconstant and popular among all
     manner of people, that it's the greatest comfort in life. I suppose
     they're as poor as mice, Papa Meagles?'

     Mr Meagles, fidgety under the question, replied, 'I hope not, ma'am. I
     hope they will manage their little income.'

     'Oh! my dearest Meagles!' returned the lady, tapping him on the arm with
     the green fan and then adroitly interposing it between a yawn and
     the company, 'how can you, as a man of the world and one of the most
     business-like of human beings--for you know you are business-like, and a
     great deal too much for us who are not--'

     (Which went to the former purpose, by making Mr Meagles out to be an
      artful schemer.)

     '--How can you talk about their managing their little means? My poor
     dear fellow! The idea of his managing hundreds! And the sweet pretty
     creature too. The notion of her managing! Papa Meagles! Don't!'

     'Well, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, gravely, 'I am sorry to admit, then,
     that Henry certainly does anticipate his means.'

     'My dear good man--I use no ceremony with you, because we are a kind of
     relations;--positively, Mama Meagles,' exclaimed Mrs Gowan cheerfully,
     as if the absurd coincidence then flashed upon her for the first time,
     'a kind of relations! My dear good man, in this world none of us can
     have _everything_ our own way.'

     This again went to the former point, and showed Mr Meagles with all good
     breeding that, so far, he had been brilliantly successful in his deep
     designs. Mrs Gowan thought the hit so good a one, that she dwelt upon
     it; repeating 'Not _everything_. No, no; in this world we must not expect
     _everything_, Papa Meagles.'

     'And may I ask, ma'am,' retorted Mr Meagles, a little heightened in
     colour, 'who does expect everything?'

     'Oh, nobody, nobody!' said Mrs Gowan. 'I was going to say--but you put
     me out. You interrupting Papa, what was I going to say?'

     Drooping her large green fan, she looked musingly at Mr Meagles while
     she thought about it; a performance not tending to the cooling of that
     gentleman's rather heated spirits.

     'Ah! Yes, to be sure!' said Mrs Gowan. 'You must remember that my poor
     fellow has always been accustomed to expectations. They may have been
     realised, or they may not have been realised--'

     'Let us say, then, may not have been realised,' observed Mr Meagles.

     The Dowager for a moment gave him an angry look; but tossed it off with
     her head and her fan, and pursued the tenor of her way in her former
     manner.

     'It makes no difference. My poor fellow has been accustomed to that
     sort of thing, and of course you knew it, and were prepared for the
     consequences. I myself always clearly foresaw the consequences, and am
     not surprised. And you must not be surprised. In fact, can't be
     surprised. Must have been prepared for it.'

     Mr Meagles looked at his wife and at Clennam; bit his lip; and coughed.

     'And now here's my poor fellow,' Mrs Gowan pursued, 'receiving notice
     that he is to hold himself in expectation of a baby, and all the
     expenses attendant on such an addition to his family! Poor Henry! But
     it can't be helped now; it's too late to help it now. Only don't talk of
     anticipating means, Papa Meagles, as a discovery; because that would be
     too much.'

     'Too much, ma'am?' said Mr Meagles, as seeking an explanation.

     'There, there!' said Mrs Gowan, putting him in his inferior place with
     an expressive action of her hand. 'Too much for my poor fellow's
     mother to bear at this time of day. They are fast married, and can't
     be unmarried. There, there! I know that! You needn't tell me that, Papa
     Meagles. I know it very well. What was it I said just now? That it was
     a great comfort they continued happy. It is to be hoped they will still
     continue happy. It is to be hoped Pretty One will do everything she
     can to make my poor fellow happy, and keep him contented. Papa and Mama
     Meagles, we had better say no more about it. We never did look at this
     subject from the same side, and we never shall. There, there! Now I am
     good.'

     Truly, having by this time said everything she could say in maintenance
     of her wonderfully mythical position, and in admonition to Mr Meagles
     that he must not expect to bear his honours of alliance too cheaply, Mrs
     Gowan was disposed to forgo the rest. If Mr Meagles had submitted to
     a glance of entreaty from Mrs Meagles, and an expressive gesture from
     Clennam, he would have left her in the undisturbed enjoyment of this
     state of mind. But Pet was the darling and pride of his heart; and if he
     could ever have championed her more devotedly, or loved her better, than
     in the days when she was the sunlight of his house, it would have been
     now, when, as its daily grace and delight, she was lost to it.

     'Mrs Gowan, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'I have been a plain man all my
     life. If I was to try--no matter whether on myself, on somebody else,
     or both--any genteel mystifications, I should probably not succeed in
     them.'

     'Papa Meagles,' returned the Dowager, with an affable smile, but with
     the bloom on her cheeks standing out a little more vividly than usual as
     the neighbouring surface became paler,'probably not.'

     'Therefore, my good madam,' said Mr Meagles, at great pains to
     restrain himself, 'I hope I may, without offence, ask to have no such
     mystification played off upon me.'

     'Mama Meagles,' observed Mrs Gowan, 'your good man is incomprehensible.'

     Her turning to that worthy lady was an artifice to bring her into the
     discussion, quarrel with her, and vanquish her. Mr Meagles interposed to
     prevent that consummation.

     'Mother,' said he, 'you are inexpert, my dear, and it is not a fair
     match. Let me beg of you to remain quiet. Come, Mrs Gowan, come! Let
     us try to be sensible; let us try to be good-natured; let us try to
     be fair. Don't you pity Henry, and I won't pity Pet. And don't be
     one-sided, my dear madam; it's not considerate, it's not kind. Don't
     let us say that we hope Pet will make Henry happy, or even that we hope
     Henry will make Pet happy,' (Mr Meagles himself did not look happy as he
             spoke the words,) 'but let us hope they will make each other happy.'

     'Yes, sure, and there leave it, father,' said Mrs Meagles the
     kind-hearted and comfortable.

     'Why, mother, no,' returned Mr Meagles, 'not exactly there. I can't
     quite leave it there; I must say just half-a-dozen words more. Mrs
     Gowan, I hope I am not over-sensitive. I believe I don't look it.'

     'Indeed you do not,' said Mrs Gowan, shaking her head and the great
     green fan together, for emphasis.

     'Thank you, ma'am; that's well. Notwithstanding which, I feel a
     little--I don't want to use a strong word--now shall I say hurt?'
     asked Mr Meagles at once with frankness and moderation, and with a
     conciliatory appeal in his tone.

     'Say what you like,' answered Mrs Gowan. 'It is perfectly indifferent to
     me.'

     'No, no, don't say that,' urged Mr Meagles, 'because that's not
     responding amiably. I feel a little hurt when I hear references made to
     consequences having been foreseen, and to its being too late now, and so
     forth.'

     '_Do_ you, Papa Meagles?' said Mrs Gowan. 'I am not surprised.'

     'Well, ma'am,' reasoned Mr Meagles, 'I was in hopes you would have been
     at least surprised, because to hurt me wilfully on so tender a subject
     is surely not generous.'

     'I am not responsible,' said Mrs Gowan, 'for your conscience, you know.'

     Poor Mr Meagles looked aghast with astonishment.

     'If I am unluckily obliged to carry a cap about with me, which is yours
     and fits you,' pursued Mrs Gowan, 'don't blame me for its pattern, Papa
     Meagles, I beg!'

     'Why, good Lord, ma'am!' Mr Meagles broke out, 'that's as much as to
     state--'

     'Now, Papa Meagles, Papa Meagles,' said Mrs Gowan, who became extremely
     deliberate and prepossessing in manner whenever that gentleman became at
     all warm, 'perhaps to prevent confusion, I had better speak for myself
     than trouble your kindness to speak for me. It's as much as to state,
     you begin. If you please, I will finish the sentence. It is as much as
     to state--not that I wish to press it or even recall it, for it is of no
     use now, and my only wish is to make the best of existing
     circumstances--that from the first to the last I always objected to this
     match of yours, and at a very late period yielded a most unwilling
     consent to it.'

     'Mother!' cried Mr Meagles. 'Do you hear this! Arthur! Do you hear
     this!'

     'The room being of a convenient size,' said Mrs Gowan, looking about
     as she fanned herself, 'and quite charmingly adapted in all respects to
     conversation, I should imagine I am audible in any part of it.'

     Some moments passed in silence, before Mr Meagles could hold himself in
     his chair with sufficient security to prevent his breaking out of it at
     the next word he spoke. At last he said: 'Ma'am, I am very unwilling to
     revive them, but I must remind you what my opinions and my course were,
     all along, on that unfortunate subject.'

     'O, my dear sir!' said Mrs Gowan, smiling and shaking her head with
     accusatory intelligence, 'they were well understood by me, I assure
     you.'

     'I never, ma'am,' said Mr Meagles, 'knew unhappiness before that time,
     I never knew anxiety before that time. It was a time of such distress to
     me that--' That Mr Meagles could really say no more about it, in short,
     but passed his handkerchief before his face.

     'I understood the whole affair,' said Mrs Gowan, composedly looking
     over her fan. 'As you have appealed to Mr Clennam, I may appeal to Mr
     Clennam, too. He knows whether I did or not.'

     'I am very unwilling,' said Clennam, looked to by all parties, 'to take
     any share in this discussion, more especially because I wish to preserve
     the best understanding and the clearest relations with Mr Henry Gowan.
     I have very strong reasons indeed, for entertaining that wish. Mrs Gowan
     attributed certain views of furthering the marriage to my friend here,
     in conversation with me before it took place; and I endeavoured to
     undeceive her. I represented that I knew him (as I did and do) to be
     strenuously opposed to it, both in opinion and action.'

     'You see?' said Mrs Gowan, turning the palms of her hands towards Mr
     Meagles, as if she were Justice herself, representing to him that he had
     better confess, for he had not a leg to stand on. 'You see? Very good!
     Now Papa and Mama Meagles both!' here she rose; 'allow me to take the
     liberty of putting an end to this rather formidable controversy. I will
     not say another word upon its merits. I will only say that it is an
     additional proof of what one knows from all experience; that this kind
     of thing never answers--as my poor fellow himself would say, that it
     never pays--in one word, that it never does.'

     Mr Meagles asked, What kind of thing?

     'It is in vain,' said Mrs Gowan, 'for people to attempt to get on
     together who have such extremely different antecedents; who are jumbled
     against each other in this accidental, matrimonial sort of way; and who
     cannot look at the untoward circumstance which has shaken them together
     in the same light. It never does.'

     Mr Meagles was beginning, 'Permit me to say, ma'am--'

     'No, don't,' returned Mrs Gowan. 'Why should you! It is an ascertained
     fact. It never does. I will therefore, if you please, go my way, leaving
     you to yours. I shall at all times be happy to receive my poor fellow's
     pretty wife, and I shall always make a point of being on the most
     affectionate terms with her. But as to these terms, semi-family and
     semi-stranger, semi-goring and semi-boring, they form a state of things
     quite amusing in its impracticability. I assure you it never does.'

     The Dowager here made a smiling obeisance, rather to the room than to
     any one in it, and therewith took a final farewell of Papa and Mama
     Meagles. Clennam stepped forward to hand her to the Pill-Box which was
     at the service of all the Pills in Hampton Court Palace; and she got
     into that vehicle with distinguished serenity, and was driven away.

     Thenceforth the Dowager, with a light and careless humour, often
     recounted to her particular acquaintance how, after a hard trial, she
     had found it impossible to know those people who belonged to Henry's
     wife, and who had made that desperate set to catch him. Whether she had
     come to the conclusion beforehand, that to get rid of them would give
     her favourite pretence a better air, might save her some occasional
     inconvenience, and could risk no loss (the pretty creature being fast
             married, and her father devoted to her), was best known to herself.
     Though this history has its opinion on that point too, and decidedly in
     the affirmative.

 Hey! Arthur! Remember him? So the whole Doyce & Clennam operation is going quite well. They are good friends, good business partners, and generally getting along swimmingly. Having Arthur do the CFO stuff is great and makes it so Doyce can do the COO stuff. Doyce is still bummed that his awesome invention has never been patented or used, but he's totally too old to fight the Circumlocution Office. Arthur volunteers for the job and goes at it with gusto. That basically becomes his main activity, besides regular Doyce & Clennam work and visiting the Meagleses. Arthur thinks of himself as an old man. Although he misses Little Dorrit, he thinks of her like a child he took under his protection, who he now doesn't get to watch grow up. But still, he really misses her. Sort of a surprising amount. One day when he's hanging out what the Meagleses, Mrs. Gowan shows up. She's obnoxious and patronizing and basically comes there on purpose to pick some kind of fight. The conversation is pretty funny, since she sucks, and since Meagles isn't too shy to tell her so, but we'll just sum it up: 1) Poor, poor Gowan, who threw it all away to marry Pet. 2) Poor, poor me, who totally objected to this marriage all along. 3) Hey, rich Mr. Meagles, throw some money their way because Gowan is used to a certain lifestyle and they're going to have a baby soon . And 4) Don't sound so surprised about any of this, since you had to have known it when you were plotting to marry your daughter off to him. Meagles is all furious and flabbergasted by this malarkey. His main retorts are: 1) Um, it's actually Pet who's the sad one here. 2) I have never been happy about this marriage and am still not happy about it. 3) Hope he gets by on his income, whatever it might be. And finally 4) You are smoking crack if you think we had anything to do with this. The visit goes poorly. Mrs. Gowan ends by saying that, just as she always suspected, people in different classes can't really get along. The narrator then busts out that Mrs. Gowan planned the whole thing so she wouldn't have to have the Meagles in her life, and so that her other friends would have an easier time believing all the stuff she constantly peddles about Gowan and the marriage. That's pretty cold.

