Chapter: That illustrious man and great national ornament, Mr Merdle, continued
his shining course. It began to be widely understood that one who had
done society the admirable service of making so much money out of it,
     could not be suffered to remain a commoner. A baronetcy was spoken of
     with confidence; a peerage was frequently mentioned. Rumour had it
     that Mr Merdle had set his golden face against a baronetcy; that he had
     plainly intimated to Lord Decimus that a baronetcy was not enough
     for him; that he had said, 'No--a Peerage, or plain Merdle.' This was
     reported to have plunged Lord Decimus as nigh to his noble chin in a
     slough of doubts as so lofty a person could be sunk. For the Barnacles,
     as a group of themselves in creation, had an idea that such distinctions
     belonged to them; and that when a soldier, sailor, or lawyer became
    ennobled, they let him in, as it were, by an act of condescension, at
the family door, and immediately shut it again. Not only (said Rumour)
    had the troubled Decimus his own hereditary part in this impression, but
    he also knew of several Barnacle claims already on the file, which came
    into collision with that of the master spirit. Right or wrong, Rumour
    was very busy; and Lord Decimus, while he was, or was supposed to be, in
    stately excogitation of the difficulty, lent her some countenance by
    taking, on several public occasions, one of those elephantine trots of
    his through a jungle of overgrown sentences, waving Mr Merdle about on
    his trunk as Gigantic Enterprise, The Wealth of England, Elasticity,
    Credit, Capital, Prosperity, and all manner of blessings.

    So quietly did the mowing of the old scythe go on, that fully three
    months had passed unnoticed since the two English brothers had been laid
    in one tomb in the strangers' cemetery at Rome. Mr and Mrs Sparkler were
    established in their own house: a little mansion, rather of the Tite
    Barnacle class, quite a triumph of inconvenience, with a perpetual smell
    in it of the day before yesterday's soup and coach-horses, but extremely
    dear, as being exactly in the centre of the habitable globe. In this
    enviable abode (and envied it really was by many people), Mrs Sparkler
    had intended to proceed at once to the demolition of the Bosom, when
    active hostilities had been suspended by the arrival of the Courier with
    his tidings of death. Mrs Sparkler, who was not unfeeling, had received
    them with a violent burst of grief, which had lasted twelve hours;
    after which, she had arisen to see about her mourning, and to take every
    precaution that could ensure its being as becoming as Mrs Merdle's. A
    gloom was then cast over more than one distinguished family (according
            to the politest sources of intelligence), and the Courier went back
    again.

    Mr and Mrs Sparkler had been dining alone, with their gloom cast over
    them, and Mrs Sparkler reclined on a drawing-room sofa. It was a hot
    summer Sunday evening. The residence in the centre of the habitable
    globe, at all times stuffed and close as if it had an incurable cold in
    its head, was that evening particularly stifling. The bells of the
    churches had done their worst in the way of clanging among the
    unmelodious echoes of the streets, and the lighted windows of the
    churches had ceased to be yellow in the grey dusk, and had died out
    opaque black. Mrs Sparkler, lying on her sofa, looking through an open
    window at the opposite side of a narrow street over boxes of mignonette
    and flowers, was tired of the view. Mrs Sparkler, looking at another
    window where her husband stood in the balcony, was tired of that view.
    Mrs Sparkler, looking at herself in her mourning, was even tired of that
    view: though, naturally, not so tired of that as of the other two.

    'It's like lying in a well,' said Mrs Sparkler, changing her position
    fretfully. 'Dear me, Edmund, if you have anything to say, why don't you
    say it?'

    Mr Sparkler might have replied with ingenuousness, 'My life, I have
    nothing to say.' But, as the repartee did not occur to him, he contented
    himself with coming in from the balcony and standing at the side of his
    wife's couch.

    'Good gracious, Edmund!' said Mrs Sparkler more fretfully still, 'you are
    absolutely putting mignonette up your nose! Pray don't!'

    Mr Sparkler, in absence of mind--perhaps in a more literal absence of
    mind than is usually understood by the phrase--had smelt so hard at a
    sprig in his hand as to be on the verge of the offence in question. He
    smiled, said, 'I ask your pardon, my dear,' and threw it out of window.

    'You make my head ache by remaining in that position, Edmund,' said Mrs
    Sparkler, raising her eyes to him after another minute; 'you look so
    aggravatingly large by this light. Do sit down.'

    'Certainly, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler, and took a chair on the same
    spot.

    'If I didn't know that the longest day was past,' said Fanny, yawning in
    a dreary manner, 'I should have felt certain this was the longest day. I
    never did experience such a day.'

    'Is that your fan, my love?' asked Mr Sparkler, picking up one and
    presenting it.

    'Edmund,' returned his wife, more wearily yet, 'don't ask weak
    questions, I entreat you not. Whose can it be but mine?'

    'Yes, I thought it was yours,' said Mr Sparkler.

    'Then you shouldn't ask,' retorted Fanny. After a little while she
    turned on her sofa and exclaimed, 'Dear me, dear me, there never was
    such a long day as this!' After another little while, she got up slowly,
    walked about, and came back again.

    'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler, flashing with an original conception, 'I
    think you must have got the fidgets.'

    'Oh, Fidgets!' repeated Mrs Sparkler. 'Don't.'

    'My adorable girl,' urged Mr Sparkler, 'try your aromatic vinegar. I
    have often seen my mother try it, and it seemingly refreshed her.

    And she is, as I believe you are aware, a remarkably fine woman, with no
    non--'

    'Good Gracious!' exclaimed Fanny, starting up again. 'It's beyond all
    patience! This is the most wearisome day that ever did dawn upon the
    world, I am certain.'

    Mr Sparkler looked meekly after her as she lounged about the room, and
    he appeared to be a little frightened. When she had tossed a few trifles
    about, and had looked down into the darkening street out of all the
    three windows, she returned to her sofa, and threw herself among its
    pillows.

    'Now Edmund, come here! Come a little nearer, because I want to be able
    to touch you with my fan, that I may impress you very much with what I
    am going to say. That will do. Quite close enough. Oh, you _do_ look so
    big!'

    Mr Sparkler apologised for the circumstance, pleaded that he couldn't
    help it, and said that 'our fellows,' without more particularly
    indicating whose fellows, used to call him by the name of Quinbus
    Flestrin, Junior, or the Young Man Mountain.

    'You ought to have told me so before,' Fanny complained.

    'My dear,' returned Mr Sparkler, rather gratified, 'I didn't know
    It would interest you, or I would have made a point of telling you.'

    'There! For goodness sake, don't talk,' said Fanny; 'I want to talk,
    myself. Edmund, we must not be alone any more. I must take such
    precautions as will prevent my being ever again reduced to the state of
    dreadful depression in which I am this evening.'

    'My dear,' answered Mr Sparkler; 'being as you are well known to be, a
    remarkably fine woman with no--'

    'Oh, good GRACIOUS!' cried Fanny.

    Mr Sparkler was so discomposed by the energy of this exclamation,
    accompanied with a flouncing up from the sofa and a flouncing down
    again, that a minute or two elapsed before he felt himself equal to
    saying in explanation:

    'I mean, my dear, that everybody knows you are calculated to shine in
    society.'

    'Calculated to shine in society,' retorted Fanny with great
    irritability; 'yes, indeed! And then what happens? I no sooner recover,
    in a visiting point of view, the shock of poor dear papa's death, and my
    poor uncle's--though I do not disguise from myself that the last was
    a happy release, for, if you are not presentable you had much better
    die--'

    'You are not referring to me, my love, I hope?' Mr Sparkler humbly
    interrupted.

    'Edmund, Edmund, you would wear out a Saint. Am I not expressly speaking
    of my poor uncle?'

    'You looked with so much expression at myself, my dear girl,' said Mr
    Sparkler, 'that I felt a little uncomfortable. Thank you, my love.'

    'Now you have put me out,' observed Fanny with a resigned toss of her
    fan, 'and I had better go to bed.'

    'Don't do that, my love,' urged Mr Sparkler. 'Take time.'

    Fanny took a good deal of time: lying back with her eyes shut, and her
    eyebrows raised with a hopeless expression as if she had utterly given
    up all terrestrial affairs. At length, without the slightest notice, she
    opened her eyes again, and recommenced in a short, sharp manner:

    'What happens then, I ask! What happens? Why, I find myself at the very
    period when I might shine most in society, and should most like for
    very momentous reasons to shine in society--I find myself in a situation
    which to a certain extent disqualifies me for going into society. It's
    too bad, really!'

    'My dear,' said Mr Sparkler. 'I don't think it need keep you at
    home.'

    'Edmund, you ridiculous creature,' returned Fanny, with great
    indignation; 'do you suppose that a woman in the bloom of youth and not
    wholly devoid of personal attractions, can put herself, at such a
    time, in competition as to figure with a woman in every other way her
    inferior? If you do suppose such a thing, your folly is boundless.'

    Mr Sparkler submitted that he had thought 'it might be got over.'

    'Got over!' repeated Fanny, with immeasurable scorn.

    'For a time,' Mr Sparkler submitted.

    Honouring the last feeble suggestion with no notice, Mrs Sparkler
    declared with bitterness that it really was too bad, and that positively
    it was enough to make one wish one was dead!

    'However,' she said, when she had in some measure recovered from her
    sense of personal ill-usage; 'provoking as it is, and cruel as it seems,
    I suppose it must be submitted to.'

    'Especially as it was to be expected,' said Mr Sparkler.

    'Edmund,' returned his wife, 'if you have nothing more becoming to do
    than to attempt to insult the woman who has honoured you with her hand,
    when she finds herself in adversity, I think _you_ had better go to bed!'

    Mr Sparkler was much afflicted by the charge, and offered a most
    tender and earnest apology. His apology was accepted; but Mrs Sparkler
    requested him to go round to the other side of the sofa and sit in the
    window-curtain, to tone himself down.

    'Now, Edmund,' she said, stretching out her fan, and touching him with
    it at arm's length, 'what I was going to say to you when you began as
    usual to prose and worry, is, that I shall guard against our being alone
    any more, and that when circumstances prevent my going out to my own
    satisfaction, I must arrange to have some people or other always here;
    for I really cannot, and will not, have another such day as this has
    been.'

    Mr Sparkler's sentiments as to the plan were, in brief, that it had no
    nonsense about it. He added, 'And besides, you know it's likely that
    you'll soon have your sister--'

    'Dearest Amy, yes!' cried Mrs Sparkler with a sigh of affection.
    'Darling little thing! Not, however, that Amy would do here alone.'

    Mr Sparkler was going to say 'No?' interrogatively, but he saw his
    danger and said it assentingly, 'No, Oh dear no; she wouldn't do here
    alone.'

    'No, Edmund. For not only are the virtues of the precious child of that
    still character that they require a contrast--require life and movement
    around them to bring them out in their right colours and make one love
    them of all things; but she will require to be roused, on more accounts
    than one.'

    'That's it,' said Mr Sparkler. 'Roused.'

    'Pray don't, Edmund! Your habit of interrupting without having the least
    thing in the world to say, distracts one. You must be broken of it.
    Speaking of Amy;--my poor little pet was devotedly attached to poor
    papa, and no doubt will have lamented his loss exceedingly, and grieved
    very much. I have done so myself. I have felt it dreadfully. But Amy
    will no doubt have felt it even more, from having been on the spot the
    whole time, and having been with poor dear papa at the last; which I
    unhappily was not.'

    Here Fanny stopped to weep, and to say, 'Dear, dear, beloved papa! How
    truly gentlemanly he was! What a contrast to poor uncle!'

    'From the effects of that trying time,' she pursued, 'my good little
    Mouse will have to be roused. Also, from the effects of this long
    attendance upon Edward in his illness; an attendance which is not
    yet over, which may even go on for some time longer, and which in the
    meanwhile unsettles us all by keeping poor dear papa's affairs from
    being wound up. Fortunately, however, the papers with his agents
    here being all sealed up and locked up, as he left them when he
    providentially came to England, the affairs are in that state of order
    that they can wait until my brother Edward recovers his health in
    Sicily, sufficiently to come over, and administer, or execute, or
    whatever it may be that will have to be done.'

    'He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round,' Mr Sparkler made
    bold to opine.

    'For a wonder, I can agree with you,' returned his wife, languidly
    turning her eyelids a little in his direction (she held forth, in
            general, as if to the drawing-room furniture), 'and can adopt your
    words. He couldn't have a better nurse to bring him round. There are
    times when my dear child is a little wearing to an active mind; but, as
    a nurse, she is Perfection. Best of Amys!'

    Mr Sparkler, growing rash on his late success, observed that Edward had
    had, biggodd, a long bout of it, my dear girl.

    'If Bout, Edmund,' returned Mrs Sparkler, 'is the slang term for
    indisposition, he has. If it is not, I am unable to give an opinion
    on the barbarous language you address to Edward's sister. That he
    contracted Malaria Fever somewhere, either by travelling day and night
    to Rome, where, after all, he arrived too late to see poor dear papa
    before his death--or under some other unwholesome circumstances--is
    indubitable, if that is what you mean. Likewise that his extremely
    careless life has made him a very bad subject for it indeed.'

    Mr Sparkler considered it a parallel case to that of some of our fellows
    in the West Indies with Yellow Jack. Mrs Sparkler closed her eyes again,
    and refused to have any consciousness of our fellows of the West Indies,
    or of Yellow Jack.

    'So, Amy,' she pursued, when she reopened her eyelids, 'will require
    to be roused from the effects of many tedious and anxious weeks. And
    lastly, she will require to be roused from a low tendency which I know
    very well to be at the bottom of her heart. Don't ask me what it is,
    Edmund, because I must decline to tell you.'

    'I am not going to, my dear,' said Mr Sparkler.

    'I shall thus have much improvement to effect in my sweet child,' Mrs
    Sparkler continued, 'and cannot have her near me too soon. Amiable and
    dear little Twoshoes! As to the settlement of poor papa's affairs, my
    interest in that is not very selfish. Papa behaved very generously to me
    when I was married, and I have little or nothing to expect. Provided
    he had made no will that can come into force, leaving a legacy to Mrs
    General, I am contented. Dear papa, dear papa.'

    She wept again, but Mrs General was the best of restoratives. The name
    soon stimulated her to dry her eyes and say:

    'It is a highly encouraging circumstance in Edward's illness, I am
    thankful to think, and gives one the greatest confidence in his sense
    not being impaired, or his proper spirit weakened--down to the time
    of poor dear papa's death at all events--that he paid off Mrs General
    instantly, and sent her out of the house. I applaud him for it. I could
    forgive him a great deal for doing, with such promptitude, so exactly
    what I would have done myself!'

    Mrs Sparkler was in the full glow of her gratification, when a double
    knock was heard at the door. A very odd knock. Low, as if to avoid
    making a noise and attracting attention. Long, as if the person knocking
    were preoccupied in mind, and forgot to leave off.

    'Halloa!' said Mr Sparkler. 'Who's this?'

    'Not Amy and Edward without notice and without a carriage!' said Mrs
    Sparkler. 'Look out.'

    The room was dark, but the street was lighter, because of its lamps. Mr
    Sparkler's head peeping over the balcony looked so very bulky and heavy
    that it seemed on the point of overbalancing him and flattening the
    unknown below.

    'It's one fellow,' said Mr Sparkler. 'I can't see who--stop though!'

    On this second thought he went out into the balcony again and had
    another look. He came back as the door was opened, and announced that he
    believed he had identified 'his governor's tile.' He was not mistaken,
    for his governor, with his tile in his hand, was introduced immediately
    afterwards.

    'Candles!' said Mrs Sparkler, with a word of excuse for the darkness.

    'It's light enough for me,' said Mr Merdle.

    When the candles were brought in, Mr Merdle was discovered standing
    behind the door, picking his lips. 'I thought I'd give you a call,' he
    said. 'I am rather particularly occupied just now; and, as I happened to
    be out for a stroll, I thought I'd give you a call.'

    As he was in dinner dress, Fanny asked him where he had been dining?

    'Well,' said Mr Merdle, 'I haven't been dining anywhere, particularly.'

    'Of course you have dined?' said Fanny.

    'Why--no, I haven't exactly dined,' said Mr Merdle.

    He had passed his hand over his yellow forehead and considered, as if he
    were not sure about it. Something to eat was proposed. 'No, thank you,'
    said Mr Merdle, 'I don't feel inclined for it. I was to have dined out
    along with Mrs Merdle. But as I didn't feel inclined for dinner, I let
    Mrs Merdle go by herself just as we were getting into the carriage, and
    thought I'd take a stroll instead.'

    Would he have tea or coffee? 'No, thank you,' said Mr Merdle. 'I looked
    in at the Club, and got a bottle of wine.'

    At this period of his visit, Mr Merdle took the chair which Edmund
    Sparkler had offered him, and which he had hitherto been pushing slowly
    about before him, like a dull man with a pair of skates on for the first
    time, who could not make up his mind to start. He now put his hat upon
    another chair beside him, and, looking down into it as if it were some
    twenty feet deep, said again: 'You see I thought I'd give you a call.'

    'Flattering to us,' said Fanny, 'for you are not a calling man.'

    'No--no,' returned Mr Merdle, who was by this time taking himself into
    custody under both coat-sleeves. 'No, I am not a calling man.'

    'You have too much to do for that,' said Fanny. 'Having so much to do,
    Mr Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and you must
    have it seen to. You must not be ill.'

    'Oh! I am very well,' replied Mr Merdle, after deliberating about it. 'I
    am as well as I usually am. I am well enough. I am as well as I want to
    be.'

    The master-mind of the age, true to its characteristic of being at all
    times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great
    difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs Sparkler began to wonder
    how long the master-mind meant to stay.

    'I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir.'

    'Aye! Quite a coincidence,' said Mr Merdle.

    Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue
    talking. 'I was saying,' she pursued, 'that my brother's illness has
    occasioned a delay in examining and arranging papa's property.'

    'Yes,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes. There has been a delay.'

    'Not that it is of consequence,' said Fanny.

    'Not,' assented Mr Merdle, after having examined the cornice of all
    that part of the room which was within his range: 'not that it is of any
    consequence.'

    'My only anxiety is,' said Fanny, 'that Mrs General should not get
    anything.'

    '_She_ won't get anything,' said Mr Merdle.

    Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion. Mr Merdle, after
    taking another gaze into the depths of his hat as if he thought he saw
    something at the bottom, rubbed his hair and slowly appended to his last
    remark the confirmatory words, 'Oh dear no. No. Not she. Not likely.'

    As the topic seemed exhausted, and Mr Merdle too, Fanny inquired if he
    were going to take up Mrs Merdle and the carriage in his way home?

    'No,' he answered; 'I shall go by the shortest way, and leave Mrs Merdle
    to--' here he looked all over the palms of both his hands as if he were
    telling his own fortune--'to take care of herself. I dare say she'll
    manage to do it.'

    'Probably,' said Fanny.

    There was then a long silence; during which, Mrs Sparkler, lying back
    on her sofa again, shut her eyes and raised her eyebrows in her former
    retirement from mundane affairs.

    'But, however,' said Mr Merdle, 'I am equally detaining you and myself.
    I thought I'd give you a call, you know.'

    'Charmed, I am sure,' said Fanny.

    'So I am off,' added Mr Merdle, getting up. 'Could you lend me a
    penknife?'

    It was an odd thing, Fanny smilingly observed, for her who could seldom
    prevail upon herself even to write a letter, to lend to a man of such
    vast business as Mr Merdle. 'Isn't it?' Mr Merdle acquiesced; 'but
    I want one; and I know you have got several little wedding keepsakes
    about, with scissors and tweezers and such things in them. You shall
    have it back to-morrow.'

    'Edmund,' said Mrs Sparkler, 'open (now, very carefully, I beg and
            beseech, for you are so very awkward) the mother of pearl box on my
    little table there, and give Mr Merdle the mother of pearl penknife.'

    'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'but if you have got one with a darker
    handle, I think I should prefer one with a darker handle.'

    'Tortoise-shell?'

    'Thank you,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes. I think I should prefer
    tortoise-shell.'

    Edmund accordingly received instructions to open the tortoise-shell box,
    and give Mr Merdle the tortoise-shell knife. On his doing so, his wife
    said to the master-spirit graciously:

    'I will forgive you, if you ink it.'

    'I'll undertake not to ink it,' said Mr Merdle.

    The illustrious visitor then put out his coat-cuff, and for a moment
    entombed Mrs Sparkler's hand: wrist, bracelet, and all. Where his own
    hand had shrunk to, was not made manifest, but it was as remote from Mrs
    Sparkler's sense of touch as if he had been a highly meritorious Chelsea
    Veteran or Greenwich Pensioner.

    Thoroughly convinced, as he went out of the room, that it was the
    longest day that ever did come to an end at last, and that there never
    was a woman, not wholly devoid of personal attractions, so worn out by
    idiotic and lumpish people, Fanny passed into the balcony for a breath
    of air. Waters of vexation filled her eyes; and they had the effect of
    making the famous Mr Merdle, in going down the street, appear to leap,
    and waltz, and gyrate, as if he were possessed of several Devils.

 Things are looking up for Merdle. Now he wants a title, and not just be a Baronet . The Barnacles are looking into it. Meanwhile Fanny and Sparkler are now in their new house. It's kind of a tiny, crappy house in the best possible location. Fanny is super bored. Her house is boring, her reflection is boring, the view out her windows is boring. And her husband? He's the most boring of all. They have nothing to talk about. And every time he opens his mouth to say anything, even to answer one of her questions, she immediately shuts him up. Ah, married life is grand. It turns out they've been stuck at home for some time. First there was the mourning period for Dorrit and Frederick Dorrit. Also, Fanny is preggers, which also limits her social life. Sparkler suggests that she could still party a little bit, but Fanny doesn't want her body compared with those who aren't pregnant. Finally Fanny suggests that they need to just have people over to their house all the time. All. The. Time. Because otherwise she is going to go crazy. Sparkler suggests Amy. Fanny is psyched at the idea of Amy coming, but obviously Amy alone won't be much fun. And besides, she is right now taking care of Tip, who is ill with malaria. Suddenly there is a tiny knock on the door. It's Merdle! He says repeatedly that he was out for a walk and decided to say hello. He is totally unable to make any conversation. He asks Fanny for a penknife . She offers him a mother-of-pearl one, but he prefers a tortoiseshell one instead. She asks him to try not to get ink on it. OK, then. He takes it and leaves. Fanny and Sparkler continuing their boring evening.

