Chapter: Mr Henry Gowan and the dog were established frequenters of the cottage,
   and the day was fixed for the wedding. There was to be a convocation of
   Barnacles on the occasion, in order that that very high and very large
   family might shed as much lustre on the marriage as so dim an event was
   capable of receiving.

   To have got the whole Barnacle family together would have been
   impossible for two reasons. Firstly, because no building could have held
   all the members and connections of that illustrious house. Secondly,
   because wherever there was a square yard of ground in British occupation
   under the sun or moon, with a public post upon it, sticking to that post
   was a Barnacle. No intrepid navigator could plant a flag-staff upon any
   spot of earth, and take possession of it in the British name, but
   to that spot of earth, so soon as the discovery was known, the
   Circumlocution Office sent out a Barnacle and a despatch-box. Thus the
   Barnacles were all over the world, in every direction--despatch-boxing
   the compass.

   But, while the so-potent art of Prospero himself would have failed in
   summoning the Barnacles from every speck of ocean and dry land on
   which there was nothing (except mischief) to be done and anything to be
   pocketed, it was perfectly feasible to assemble a good many Barnacles.
   This Mrs Gowan applied herself to do; calling on Mr Meagles frequently
    with new additions to the list, and holding conferences with that
gentleman when he was not engaged (as he generally was at this period)
    in examining and paying the debts of his future son-in-law, in the
    apartment of scales and scoop.

    One marriage guest there was, in reference to whose presence Mr Meagles
    felt a nearer interest and concern than in the attendance of the most
    elevated Barnacle expected; though he was far from insensible of the
    honour of having such company. This guest was Clennam. But Clennam had
    made a promise he held sacred, among the trees that summer night, and,
    in the chivalry of his heart, regarded it as binding him to many implied
    obligations. In forgetfulness of himself, and delicate service to her on
    all occasions, he was never to fail; to begin it, he answered Mr Meagles
    cheerfully, 'I shall come, of course.'

    His partner, Daniel Doyce, was something of a stumbling-block in Mr
    Meagles's way, the worthy gentleman being not at all clear in his own
    anxious mind but that the mingling of Daniel with official Barnacleism
    might produce some explosive combination, even at a marriage breakfast.
    The national offender, however, lightened him of his uneasiness by
    coming down to Twickenham to represent that he begged, with the freedom
    of an old friend, and as a favour to one, that he might not be invited.
    'For,' said he, 'as my business with this set of gentlemen was to do a
    public duty and a public service, and as their business with me was to
    prevent it by wearing my soul out, I think we had better not eat and
    drink together with a show of being of one mind.' Mr Meagles was much
    amused by his friend's oddity; and patronised him with a more protecting
    air of allowance than usual, when he rejoined: 'Well, well, Dan, you
    shall have your own crotchety way.'

    To Mr Henry Gowan, as the time approached, Clennam tried to convey
    by all quiet and unpretending means, that he was frankly and
    disinterestedly desirous of tendering him any friendship he would
    accept. Mr Gowan treated him in return with his usual ease, and with his
    usual show of confidence, which was no confidence at all.

    'You see, Clennam,' he happened to remark in the course of conversation
    one day, when they were walking near the Cottage within a week of the
    marriage, 'I am a disappointed man. That you know already.'

    'Upon my word,' said Clennam, a little embarrassed, 'I scarcely know
    how.'

    'Why,' returned Gowan, 'I belong to a clan, or a clique, or a family, or
    a connection, or whatever you like to call it, that might have provided
    for me in any one of fifty ways, and that took it into its head not to
    do it at all. So here I am, a poor devil of an artist.'

    Clennam was beginning, 'But on the other hand--' when Gowan took him up.

    'Yes, yes, I know. I have the good fortune of being beloved by a
    beautiful and charming girl whom I love with all my heart.'

    ('Is there much of it?' Clennam thought. And as he thought it, felt
     ashamed of himself.)

    'And of finding a father-in-law who is a capital fellow and a liberal
    good old boy. Still, I had other prospects washed and combed into my
    childish head when it was washed and combed for me, and I took them to
    a public school when I washed and combed it for myself, and I am here
    without them, and thus I am a disappointed man.'

    Clennam thought (and as he thought it, again felt ashamed of himself),
    was this notion of being disappointed in life, an assertion of station
    which the bridegroom brought into the family as his property, having
    already carried it detrimentally into his pursuit? And was it a hopeful
    or a promising thing anywhere?

    'Not bitterly disappointed, I think,' he said aloud.

    'Hang it, no; not bitterly,' laughed Gowan. 'My people are not worth
    that--though they are charming fellows, and I have the greatest
    affection for them. Besides, it's pleasant to show them that I can do
    without them, and that they may all go to the Devil. And besides, again,
    most men are disappointed in life, somehow or other, and influenced by
    their disappointment. But it's a dear good world, and I love it!'

    'It lies fair before you now,' said Arthur.

    'Fair as this summer river,' cried the other, with enthusiasm, 'and by
    Jove I glow with admiration of it, and with ardour to run a race in it.
    It's the best of old worlds! And my calling! The best of old callings,
    isn't it?'

    'Full of interest and ambition, I conceive,' said Clennam.

    'And imposition,' added Gowan, laughing; 'we won't leave out the
    imposition. I hope I may not break down in that; but there, my being
    a disappointed man may show itself. I may not be able to face it out
    gravely enough. Between you and me, I think there is some danger of my
    being just enough soured not to be able to do that.'

    'To do what?' asked Clennam.

    'To keep it up. To help myself in my turn, as the man before me helps
    himself in his, and pass the bottle of smoke. To keep up the pretence
    as to labour, and study, and patience, and being devoted to my art, and
    giving up many solitary days to it, and abandoning many pleasures for
    it, and living in it, and all the rest of it--in short, to pass the
    bottle of smoke according to rule.'

    'But it is well for a man to respect his own vocation, whatever it is;
    and to think himself bound to uphold it, and to claim for it the respect
    it deserves; is it not?' Arthur reasoned. 'And your vocation, Gowan,
    may really demand this suit and service. I confess I should have thought
    that all Art did.'

    'What a good fellow you are, Clennam!' exclaimed the other, stopping
    to look at him, as if with irrepressible admiration. 'What a capital
    fellow! _You_ have never been disappointed. That's easy to see.'

    It would have been so cruel if he had meant it, that Clennam firmly
    resolved to believe he did not mean it. Gowan, without pausing, laid his
    hand upon his shoulder, and laughingly and lightly went on:

    'Clennam, I don't like to dispel your generous visions, and I would give
    any money (if I had any), to live in such a rose-coloured mist. But what
    I do in my trade, I do to sell. What all we fellows do, we do to
    sell. If we didn't want to sell it for the most we can get for it, we
    shouldn't do it. Being work, it has to be done; but it's easily enough
    done. All the rest is hocus-pocus. Now here's one of the advantages, or
    disadvantages, of knowing a disappointed man. You hear the truth.'

    Whatever he had heard, and whether it deserved that name or another, it
    sank into Clennam's mind. It so took root there, that he began to fear
    Henry Gowan would always be a trouble to him, and that so far he had
    gained little or nothing from the dismissal of Nobody, with all his
    inconsistencies, anxieties, and contradictions. He found a contest still
    always going on in his breast between his promise to keep Gowan in
    none but good aspects before the mind of Mr Meagles, and his enforced
    observation of Gowan in aspects that had no good in them. Nor could he
    quite support his own conscientious nature against misgivings that he
    distorted and discoloured himself, by reminding himself that he never
    sought those discoveries, and that he would have avoided them with
    willingness and great relief. For he never could forget what he had
    been; and he knew that he had once disliked Gowan for no better reason
    than that he had come in his way.

    Harassed by these thoughts, he now began to wish the marriage over,
    Gowan and his young wife gone, and himself left to fulfil his promise,
    and discharge the generous function he had accepted. This last week was,
    in truth, an uneasy interval for the whole house. Before Pet, or before
    Gowan, Mr Meagles was radiant; but Clennam had more than once found him
    alone, with his view of the scales and scoop much blurred, and had often
    seen him look after the lovers, in the garden or elsewhere when he was
    not seen by them, with the old clouded face on which Gowan had fallen
    like a shadow. In the arrangement of the house for the great occasion,
    many little reminders of the old travels of the father and mother
    and daughter had to be disturbed and passed from hand to hand; and
    sometimes, in the midst of these mute witnesses, to the life they had
    had together, even Pet herself would yield to lamenting and weeping.
    Mrs Meagles, the blithest and busiest of mothers, went about singing
    and cheering everybody; but she, honest soul, had her flights into store
    rooms, where she would cry until her eyes were red, and would then
    come out, attributing that appearance to pickled onions and pepper, and
    singing clearer than ever. Mrs Tickit, finding no balsam for a wounded
    mind in Buchan's Domestic Medicine, suffered greatly from low spirits,
    and from moving recollections of Minnie's infancy. When the latter was
    powerful with her, she usually sent up secret messages importing
    that she was not in parlour condition as to her attire, and that she
    solicited a sight of 'her child' in the kitchen; there, she would bless
    her child's face, and bless her child's heart, and hug her child, in a
    medley of tears and congratulations, chopping-boards, rolling-pins, and
    pie-crust, with the tenderness of an old attached servant, which is a
    very pretty tenderness indeed.

    But all days come that are to be; and the marriage-day was to be, and it
    came; and with it came all the Barnacles who were bidden to the feast.

    There was Mr Tite Barnacle, from the Circumlocution Office, and Mews
    Street, Grosvenor Square, with the expensive Mrs Tite Barnacle _nee_
    Stiltstalking, who made the Quarter Days so long in coming, and the
    three expensive Miss Tite Barnacles, double-loaded with accomplishments
    and ready to go off, and yet not going off with the sharpness of flash
    and bang that might have been expected, but rather hanging fire. There
    was Barnacle junior, also from the Circumlocution Office, leaving the
    Tonnage of the country, which he was somehow supposed to take under
    his protection, to look after itself, and, sooth to say, not at all
    impairing the efficiency of its protection by leaving it alone. There
    was the engaging Young Barnacle, deriving from the sprightly side of the
    family, also from the Circumlocution Office, gaily and agreeably helping
    the occasion along, and treating it, in his sparkling way, as one of the
    official forms and fees of the Church Department of How not to do it.
    There were three other Young Barnacles from three other offices, insipid
    to all the senses, and terribly in want of seasoning, doing the marriage
    as they would have 'done' the Nile, Old Rome, the new singer, or
    Jerusalem.

    But there was greater game than this. There was Lord Decimus Tite
    Barnacle himself, in the odour of Circumlocution--with the very smell of
    Despatch-Boxes upon him. Yes, there was Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle, who
    had risen to official heights on the wings of one indignant idea, and
    that was, My Lords, that I am yet to be told that it behoves a Minister
    of this free country to set bounds to the philanthropy, to cramp the
    charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the enterprise, to
    damp the independent self-reliance, of its people. That was, in other
    words, that this great statesman was always yet to be told that it
    behoved the Pilot of the ship to do anything but prosper in the private
    loaf and fish trade ashore, the crew being able, by dint of hard
    pumping, to keep the ship above water without him. On this sublime
    discovery in the great art How not to do it, Lord Decimus had long
    sustained the highest glory of the Barnacle family; and let any
    ill-advised member of either House but try How to do it by bringing in
    a Bill to do it, that Bill was as good as dead and buried when Lord
    Decimus Tite Barnacle rose up in his place and solemnly said, soaring
    into indignant majesty as the Circumlocution cheering soared around
    him, that he was yet to be told, My Lords, that it behoved him as the
    Minister of this free country, to set bounds to the philanthropy,
    to cramp the charity, to fetter the public spirit, to contract the
    enterprise, to damp the independent self-reliance, of its people. The
    discovery of this Behoving Machine was the discovery of the political
    perpetual motion. It never wore out, though it was always going round
    and round in all the State Departments.

    And there, with his noble friend and relative Lord Decimus, was
    William Barnacle, who had made the ever-famous coalition with Tudor
    Stiltstalking, and who always kept ready his own particular recipe for
    How not to do it; sometimes tapping the Speaker, and drawing it fresh
    out of him, with a 'First, I will beg you, sir, to inform the House what
    Precedent we have for the course into which the honourable gentleman
    would precipitate us;' sometimes asking the honourable gentleman to
    favour him with his own version of the Precedent; sometimes telling
    the honourable gentleman that he (William Barnacle) would search for a
    Precedent; and oftentimes crushing the honourable gentleman flat on
    the spot by telling him there was no Precedent. But Precedent and
    Precipitate were, under all circumstances, the well-matched pair of
    battle-horses of this able Circumlocutionist. No matter that the unhappy
    honourable gentleman had been trying in vain, for twenty-five years, to
    precipitate William Barnacle into this--William Barnacle still put it to
    the House, and (at second-hand or so) to the country, whether he was to
    be precipitated into this. No matter that it was utterly irreconcilable
    with the nature of things and course of events that the wretched
    honourable gentleman could possibly produce a Precedent for
    this--William Barnacle would nevertheless thank the honourable gentleman
    for that ironical cheer, and would close with him upon that issue, and
    would tell him to his teeth that there Was NO Precedent for this. It
    might perhaps have been objected that the William Barnacle wisdom was
    not high wisdom or the earth it bamboozled would never have been made,
    or, if made in a rash mistake, would have remained blank mud. But
    Precedent and Precipitate together frightened all objection out of most
    people.

    And there, too, was another Barnacle, a lively one, who had leaped
    through twenty places in quick succession, and was always in two or
    three at once, and who was the much-respected inventor of an art
    which he practised with great success and admiration in all Barnacle
    Governments. This was, when he was asked a Parliamentary question on
    any one topic, to return an answer on any other. It had done immense
    service, and brought him into high esteem with the Circumlocution
    Office.

    And there, too, was a sprinkling of less distinguished Parliamentary
    Barnacles, who had not as yet got anything snug, and were going through
    their probation to prove their worthiness. These Barnacles perched upon
    staircases and hid in passages, waiting their orders to make houses
    or not to make houses; and they did all their hearing, and ohing, and
    cheering, and barking, under directions from the heads of the family;
    and they put dummy motions on the paper in the way of other men's
    motions; and they stalled disagreeable subjects off until late in the
    night and late in the session, and then with virtuous patriotism cried
    out that it was too late; and they went down into the country, whenever
    they were sent, and swore that Lord Decimus had revived trade from a
    swoon, and commerce from a fit, and had doubled the harvest of corn,
    quadrupled the harvest of hay, and prevented no end of gold from flying
    out of the Bank. Also these Barnacles were dealt, by the heads of the
    family, like so many cards below the court-cards, to public meetings and
    dinners; where they bore testimony to all sorts of services on the part
    of their noble and honourable relatives, and buttered the Barnacles on
    all sorts of toasts. And they stood, under similar orders, at all sorts
    of elections; and they turned out of their own seats, on the shortest
    notice and the most unreasonable terms, to let in other men; and they
    fetched and carried, and toadied and jobbed, and corrupted, and ate
    heaps of dirt, and were indefatigable in the public service. And there
    was not a list, in all the Circumlocution Office, of places that might
    fall vacant anywhere within half a century, from a lord of the Treasury
    to a Chinese consul, and up again to a governor-general of India, but as
    applicants for such places, the names of some or of every one of these
    hungry and adhesive Barnacles were down.

    It was necessarily but a sprinkling of any class of Barnacles that
    attended the marriage, for there were not two score in all, and what
    is that subtracted from Legion! But the sprinkling was a swarm in the
Twickenham cottage, and filled it. A Barnacle (assisted by a Barnacle)
    married the happy pair, and it behoved Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle
    himself to conduct Mrs Meagles to breakfast.

    The entertainment was not as agreeable and natural as it might have
    been. Mr Meagles, hove down by his good company while he highly
    appreciated it, was not himself. Mrs Gowan was herself, and that did not
    improve him. The fiction that it was not Mr Meagles who had stood in the
    way, but that it was the Family greatness, and that the Family greatness
    had made a concession, and there was now a soothing unanimity, pervaded
    the affair, though it was never openly expressed. Then the Barnacles
    felt that they for their parts would have done with the Meagleses when
    the present patronising occasion was over; and the Meagleses felt the
    same for their parts. Then Gowan asserting his rights as a disappointed
    man who had his grudge against the family, and who, perhaps, had allowed
    his mother to have them there, as much in the hope it might give them
    some annoyance as with any other benevolent object, aired his pencil and
    his poverty ostentatiously before them, and told them he hoped in time
    to settle a crust of bread and cheese on his wife, and that he begged
    such of them as (more fortunate than himself) came in for any good
    thing, and could buy a picture, to please to remember the poor painter.
    Then Lord Decimus, who was a wonder on his own Parliamentary pedestal,
    turned out to be the windiest creature here: proposing happiness to the
    bride and bridegroom in a series of platitudes that would have made the
    hair of any sincere disciple and believer stand on end; and trotting,
    with the complacency of an idiotic elephant, among howling labyrinths of
    sentences which he seemed to take for high roads, and never so much
    as wanted to get out of. Then Mr Tite Barnacle could not but feel that
    there was a person in company, who would have disturbed his life-long
    sitting to Sir Thomas Lawrence in full official character, if such
    disturbance had been possible: while Barnacle junior did, with
    indignation, communicate to two vapid gentlemen, his relatives, that
    there was a feller here, look here, who had come to our Department
    without an appointment and said he wanted to know, you know; and that,
    look here, if he was to break out now, as he might you know (for you
            never could tell what an ungentlemanly Radical of that sort would be up
            to next), and was to say, look here, that he wanted to know this moment,
    you know, that would be jolly; wouldn't it?

    The pleasantest part of the occasion by far, to Clennam, was the
    painfullest. When Mr and Mrs Meagles at last hung about Pet in the room
    with the two pictures (where the company were not), before going with
    her to the threshold which she could never recross to be the old Pet and
    the old delight, nothing could be more natural and simple than the three
    were. Gowan himself was touched, and answered Mr Meagles's 'O Gowan,
    take care of her, take care of her!' with an earnest 'Don't be so
    broken-hearted, sir. By Heaven I will!'

    And so, with the last sobs and last loving words, and a last look to
    Clennam of confidence in his promise, Pet fell back in the carriage,
    and her husband waved his hand, and they were away for Dover; though not
    until the faithful Mrs Tickit, in her silk gown and jet black curls, had
    rushed out from some hiding-place, and thrown both her shoes after
    the carriage: an apparition which occasioned great surprise to the
    distinguished company at the windows.

    The said company being now relieved from further attendance, and the
    chief Barnacles being rather hurried (for they had it in hand just
            then to send a mail or two which was in danger of going straight to its
            destination, beating about the seas like the Flying Dutchman, and to
            arrange with complexity for the stoppage of a good deal of important
            business otherwise in peril of being done), went their several ways;
    with all affability conveying to Mr and Mrs Meagles that general
    assurance that what they had been doing there, they had been doing at a
    sacrifice for Mr and Mrs Meagles's good, which they always conveyed to
    Mr John Bull in their official condescension to that most unfortunate
    creature.

    A miserable blank remained in the house and in the hearts of the father
    and mother and Clennam. Mr Meagles called only one remembrance to his
    aid, that really did him good.

    'It's very gratifying, Arthur,' he said, 'after all, to look back upon.'

    'The past?' said Clennam.

    'Yes--but I mean the company.'

    It had made him much more low and unhappy at the time, but now it really
    did him good. 'It's very gratifying,' he said, often repeating the
    remark in the course of the evening. 'Such high company!'

 Finally Pet and Gowan's wedding day is here. Mrs. Gowan has done her best to get as many of the fancy members of the Barnacle family to come as possible, in order to play into the whole charade that Gowan is somehow marrying down and that Mrs. Gowan wants to class up the joint. Arthur decides to go, thinking this is what Pet would want. Doyce doesn't want to go because he's worried he and the Barnacles will come to blows. Arthur and Gowan chat. Gowan is bitter that his rich and powerful relatives haven't set him up in any way. This is sort of offensive to Arthur, who says that working for a living is not such a bad thing. Gowan does more of his all-things-are-worthless shtick. Arthur is very worried about what the marriage will be like if Gowan is already this jaded before it even happens. The ceremony goes off OK. The guest list is full of high-ranking members of the Circumlocution Office, along with some low-level ones. The narrator introduces them one by one, with vicious and hilarious bits of satire about the slow, useless, careless, and generally apathetic way government runs. Gowan makes a little speech about how they're going to be very poor. He asks everyone to commission a painting. Mr. and Mrs. Meagles cry and hug Pet, and the married couple is off to honeymoon in Italy. A totally miserable Mr. Meagles is slightly cheered up by the thought that so many highly connected, aristocratic people came to the wedding.

