Chapter: The private residence of Mr Pancks was in Pentonville, where he lodged
on the second-floor of a professional gentleman in an extremely small
way, who had an inner-door within the street door, poised on a spring
and starting open with a click like a trap; and who wrote up in the
fan-light, RUGG, GENERAL AGENT, ACCOUNTANT, DEBTS RECOVERED.

This scroll, majestic in its severe simplicity, illuminated a little
slip of front garden abutting on the thirsty high-road, where a few
of the dustiest of leaves hung their dismal heads and led a life of
choking. A professor of writing occupied the first-floor, and enlivened
the garden railings with glass-cases containing choice examples of what
his pupils had been before six lessons and while the whole of his young
family shook the table, and what they had become after six lessons
when the young family was under restraint. The tenancy of Mr Pancks was
limited to one airy bedroom; he covenanting and agreeing with Mr Rugg
his landlord, that in consideration of a certain scale of payments
accurately defined, and on certain verbal notice duly given, he should
be at liberty to elect to share the Sunday breakfast, dinner, tea, or
supper, or each or any or all of those repasts or meals of Mr and Miss
Rugg (his daughter) in the back-parlour.

Miss Rugg was a lady of a little property which she had acquired,
     together with much distinction in the neighbourhood, by having her
     heart severely lacerated and her feelings mangled by a middle-aged baker
     resident in the vicinity, against whom she had, by the agency of Mr
     Rugg, found it necessary to proceed at law to recover damages for a
     breach of promise of marriage. The baker having been, by the counsel for
     Miss Rugg, witheringly denounced on that occasion up to the full amount
     of twenty guineas, at the rate of about eighteen-pence an epithet, and
     having been cast in corresponding damages, still suffered occasional
     persecution from the youth of Pentonville. But Miss Rugg, environed by
     the majesty of the law, and having her damages invested in the public
     securities, was regarded with consideration.

     In the society of Mr Rugg, who had a round white visage, as if all his
     blushes had been drawn out of him long ago, and who had a ragged yellow
     head like a worn-out hearth broom; and in the society of Miss Rugg, who
     had little nankeen spots, like shirt buttons, all over her face, and
     whose own yellow tresses were rather scrubby than luxuriant; Mr Pancks
     had usually dined on Sundays for some few years, and had twice a week,
     or so, enjoyed an evening collation of bread, Dutch cheese, and porter.
     Mr Pancks was one of the very few marriageable men for whom Miss Rugg
     had no terrors, the argument with which he reassured himself being
     twofold; that is to say, firstly, 'that it wouldn't do twice,' and
     secondly, 'that he wasn't worth it.' Fortified within this double
     armour, Mr Pancks snorted at Miss Rugg on easy terms.

     Up to this time, Mr Pancks had transacted little or no business at his
     quarters in Pentonville, except in the sleeping line; but now that he
     had become a fortune-teller, he was often closeted after midnight
     with Mr Rugg in his little front-parlour office, and even after those
     untimely hours, burnt tallow in his bed-room. Though his duties as his
     proprietor's grubber were in no wise lessened; and though that service
     bore no greater resemblance to a bed of roses than was to be discovered
     in its many thorns; some new branch of industry made a constant demand
     upon him. When he cast off the Patriarch at night, it was only to take
     an anonymous craft in tow, and labour away afresh in other waters.

     The advance from a personal acquaintance with the elder Mr Chivery to
     an introduction to his amiable wife and disconsolate son, may have been
     easy; but easy or not, Mr Pancks soon made it. He nestled in the bosom
     of the tobacco business within a week or two after his first appearance
     in the College, and particularly addressed himself to the cultivation of
     a good understanding with Young John. In this endeavour he so prospered
     as to lure that pining shepherd forth from the groves, and tempt him
     to undertake mysterious missions; on which he began to disappear at
     uncertain intervals for as long a space as two or three days together.
     The prudent Mrs Chivery, who wondered greatly at this change, would have
     protested against it as detrimental to the Highland typification on the
     doorpost but for two forcible reasons; one, that her John was roused to
     take strong interest in the business which these starts were supposed
     to advance--and this she held to be good for his drooping spirits;
     the other, that Mr Pancks confidentially agreed to pay her, for the
     occupation of her son's time, at the handsome rate of seven and sixpence
     per day. The proposal originated with himself, and was couched in the
     pithy terms, 'If your John is weak enough, ma'am, not to take it,
     that is no reason why you should be, don't you see? So, quite between
     ourselves, ma'am, business being business, here it is!'

     What Mr Chivery thought of these things, or how much or how little he
     knew about them, was never gathered from himself. It has been already
     remarked that he was a man of few words; and it may be here observed
     that he had imbibed a professional habit of locking everything up. He
     locked himself up as carefully as he locked up the Marshalsea debtors.
     Even his custom of bolting his meals may have been a part of an uniform
     whole; but there is no question, that, as to all other purposes, he kept
     his mouth as he kept the Marshalsea door. He never opened it without
     occasion. When it was necessary to let anything out, he opened it a
     little way, held it open just as long as sufficed for the purpose, and
     locked it again. Even as he would be sparing of his trouble at the
     Marshalsea door, and would keep a visitor who wanted to go out, waiting
     for a few moments if he saw another visitor coming down the yard, so
     that one turn of the key should suffice for both, similarly he would
     often reserve a remark if he perceived another on its way to his lips,
     and would deliver himself of the two together. As to any key to his
     inner knowledge being to be found in his face, the Marshalsea key was as
     legible as an index to the individual characters and histories upon
     which it was turned.

     That Mr Pancks should be moved to invite any one to dinner at
     Pentonville, was an unprecedented fact in his calendar. But he invited
     Young John to dinner, and even brought him within range of the dangerous
     (because expensive) fascinations of Miss Rugg. The banquet was appointed
     for a Sunday, and Miss Rugg with her own hands stuffed a leg of mutton
     with oysters on the occasion, and sent it to the baker's--not _the_
     baker's but an opposition establishment. Provision of oranges, apples,
     and nuts was also made. And rum was brought home by Mr Pancks on
     Saturday night, to gladden the visitor's heart.

     The store of creature comforts was not the chief part of the visitor's
     reception. Its special feature was a foregone family confidence and
     sympathy. When Young John appeared at half-past one without the ivory
     hand and waistcoat of golden sprigs, the sun shorn of his beams by
     disastrous clouds, Mr Pancks presented him to the yellow-haired Ruggs as
     the young man he had so often mentioned who loved Miss Dorrit.

     'I am glad,' said Mr Rugg, challenging him specially in that character,
     'to have the distinguished gratification of making your acquaintance,
     sir. Your feelings do you honour. You are young; may you never outlive
     your feelings! If I was to outlive my own feelings, sir,' said Mr Rugg,
     who was a man of many words, and was considered to possess a remarkably
     good address; 'if I was to outlive my own feelings, I'd leave fifty
     pound in my will to the man who would put me out of existence.'

     Miss Rugg heaved a sigh.

     'My daughter, sir,' said Mr Rugg. 'Anastatia, you are no stranger to the
     state of this young man's affections. My daughter has had her trials,
     sir'--Mr Rugg might have used the word more pointedly in the singular
     number--'and she can feel for you.'

     Young John, almost overwhelmed by the touching nature of this greeting,
     professed himself to that effect.

     'What I envy you, sir, is,' said Mr Rugg, 'allow me to take your hat--we
     are rather short of pegs--I'll put it in the corner, nobody will tread
     on it there--What I envy you, sir, is the luxury of your own feelings. I
     belong to a profession in which that luxury is sometimes denied us.'

     Young John replied, with acknowledgments, that he only hoped he did what
     was right, and what showed how entirely he was devoted to Miss Dorrit.
     He wished to be unselfish; and he hoped he was. He wished to do anything
     as laid in his power to serve Miss Dorrit, altogether putting himself
     out of sight; and he hoped he did. It was but little that he could do,
     but he hoped he did it.

     'Sir,' said Mr Rugg, taking him by the hand, 'you are a young man that
     it does one good to come across. You are a young man that I should
     like to put in the witness-box, to humanise the minds of the legal
     profession. I hope you have brought your appetite with you, and intend
     to play a good knife and fork?'

     'Thank you, sir,' returned Young John, 'I don't eat much at present.'

     Mr Rugg drew him a little apart. 'My daughter's case, sir,' said he, 'at
     the time when, in vindication of her outraged feelings and her sex, she
     became the plaintiff in Rugg and Bawkins. I suppose I could have put it
     in evidence, Mr Chivery, if I had thought it worth my while, that the
     amount of solid sustenance my daughter consumed at that period did not
     exceed ten ounces per week.'

     'I think I go a little beyond that, sir,' returned the other,
     hesitating, as if he confessed it with some shame.

     'But in your case there's no fiend in human form,' said Mr Rugg, with
     argumentative smile and action of hand. 'Observe, Mr Chivery!
     No fiend in human form!'

     'No, sir, certainly,' Young John added with simplicity, 'I should be
     very sorry if there was.'

     'The sentiment,' said Mr Rugg, 'is what I should have expected from your
     known principles. It would affect my daughter greatly, sir, if she heard
     it. As I perceive the mutton, I am glad she didn't hear it. Mr Pancks,
     on this occasion, pray face me. My dear, face Mr Chivery. For what we
     are going to receive, may we (and Miss Dorrit) be truly thankful!'

     But for a grave waggishness in Mr Rugg's manner of delivering this
     introduction to the feast, it might have appeared that Miss Dorrit was
     expected to be one of the company. Pancks recognised the sally in
     his usual way, and took in his provender in his usual way. Miss Rugg,
     perhaps making up some of her arrears, likewise took very kindly to
     the mutton, and it rapidly diminished to the bone. A bread-and-butter
     pudding entirely disappeared, and a considerable amount of cheese and
     radishes vanished by the same means. Then came the dessert.

     Then also, and before the broaching of the rum and water, came Mr
     Pancks's note-book. The ensuing business proceedings were brief but
     curious, and rather in the nature of a conspiracy. Mr Pancks looked over
     his note-book, which was now getting full, studiously; and picked out
     little extracts, which he wrote on separate slips of paper on the table;
     Mr Rugg, in the meanwhile, looking at him with close attention, and
     Young John losing his uncollected eye in mists of meditation. When Mr
     Pancks, who supported the character of chief conspirator, had completed
     his extracts, he looked them over, corrected them, put up his note-book,
     and held them like a hand at cards.

     'Now, there's a churchyard in Bedfordshire,' said Pancks. 'Who takes
     it?'

     'I'll take it, sir,' returned Mr Rugg, 'if no one bids.'

     Mr Pancks dealt him his card, and looked at his hand again.

     'Now, there's an Enquiry in York,' said Pancks. 'Who takes it?'

     'I'm not good for York,' said Mr Rugg.

     'Then perhaps,' pursued Pancks, 'you'll be so obliging, John Chivery?'

     Young John assenting, Pancks dealt him his card, and consulted his hand
     again.

     'There's a Church in London; I may as well take that. And a Family
     Bible; I may as well take that, too. That's two to me. Two to me,'
     repeated Pancks, breathing hard over his cards. 'Here's a Clerk at
     Durham for you, John, and an old seafaring gentleman at Dunstable for
     you, Mr Rugg. Two to me, was it? Yes, two to me. Here's a Stone; three
     to me. And a Still-born Baby; four to me. And all, for the present,
     told.'

     When he had thus disposed of his cards, all being done very quietly and
     in a suppressed tone, Mr Pancks puffed his way into his own
     breast-pocket and tugged out a canvas bag; from which, with a sparing
     hand, he told forth money for travelling expenses in two little
     portions. 'Cash goes out fast,' he said anxiously, as he pushed a
     portion to each of his male companions, 'very fast.'

     'I can only assure you, Mr Pancks,' said Young John, 'that I deeply
     regret my circumstances being such that I can't afford to pay my own
     charges, or that it's not advisable to allow me the time necessary for
     my doing the distances on foot; because nothing would give me greater
     satisfaction than to walk myself off my legs without fee or reward.'

     This young man's disinterestedness appeared so very ludicrous in
     the eyes of Miss Rugg, that she was obliged to effect a precipitate
     retirement from the company, and to sit upon the stairs until she had
     had her laugh out. Meanwhile Mr Pancks, looking, not without some pity,
     at Young John, slowly and thoughtfully twisted up his canvas bag as if
     he were wringing its neck. The lady, returning as he restored it to his
     pocket, mixed rum and water for the party, not forgetting her fair self,
     and handed to every one his glass. When all were supplied, Mr Rugg rose,
     and silently holding out his glass at arm's length above the centre of
     the table, by that gesture invited the other three to add theirs, and to
     unite in a general conspiratorial clink. The ceremony was effective up
     to a certain point, and would have been wholly so throughout, if Miss
     Rugg, as she raised her glass to her lips in completion of it, had not
     happened to look at Young John; when she was again so overcome by the
     contemptible comicality of his disinterestedness as to splutter some
     ambrosial drops of rum and water around, and withdraw in confusion.

     Such was the dinner without precedent, given by Pancks at Pentonville;
     and such was the busy and strange life Pancks led. The only waking
     moments at which he appeared to relax from his cares, and to recreate
     himself by going anywhere or saying anything without a pervading object,
     were when he showed a dawning interest in the lame foreigner with the
     stick, down Bleeding Heart Yard.

     The foreigner, by name John Baptist Cavalletto--they called him Mr
     Baptist in the Yard--was such a chirping, easy, hopeful little fellow,
     that his attraction for Pancks was probably in the force of contrast.
     Solitary, weak, and scantily acquainted with the most necessary words
     of the only language in which he could communicate with the people about
     him, he went with the stream of his fortunes, in a brisk way that was
     new in those parts. With little to eat, and less to drink, and nothing
     to wear but what he wore upon him, or had brought tied up in one of the
     smallest bundles that ever were seen, he put as bright a face upon it as
     if he were in the most flourishing circumstances when he first hobbled
     up and down the Yard, humbly propitiating the general good-will with his
     white teeth.

     It was uphill work for a foreigner, lame or sound, to make his way with
     the Bleeding Hearts. In the first place, they were vaguely persuaded
     that every foreigner had a knife about him; in the second, they held it
     to be a sound constitutional national axiom that he ought to go home to
     his own country. They never thought of inquiring how many of their own
     countrymen would be returned upon their hands from divers parts of the
     world, if the principle were generally recognised; they considered it
     particularly and peculiarly British. In the third place, they had a
     notion that it was a sort of Divine visitation upon a foreigner that he
     was not an Englishman, and that all kinds of calamities happened to
     his country because it did things that England did not, and did not do
     things that England did. In this belief, to be sure, they had long been
     carefully trained by the Barnacles and Stiltstalkings, who were always
     proclaiming to them, officially, that no country which failed to submit
     itself to those two large families could possibly hope to be under the
     protection of Providence; and who, when they believed it, disparaged
     them in private as the most prejudiced people under the sun.

     This, therefore, might be called a political position of the Bleeding
     Hearts; but they entertained other objections to having foreigners
     in the Yard. They believed that foreigners were always badly off; and
     though they were as ill off themselves as they could desire to be,
     that did not diminish the force of the objection. They believed that
     foreigners were dragooned and bayoneted; and though they certainly got
     their own skulls promptly fractured if they showed any ill-humour, still
     it was with a blunt instrument, and that didn't count. They believed
     that foreigners were always immoral; and though they had an occasional
     assize at home, and now and then a divorce case or so, that had nothing
     to do with it. They believed that foreigners had no independent spirit,
     as never being escorted to the poll in droves by Lord Decimus Tite
     Barnacle, with colours flying and the tune of Rule Britannia playing.
     Not to be tedious, they had many other beliefs of a similar kind.

     Against these obstacles, the lame foreigner with the stick had to make
     head as well as he could; not absolutely single-handed, because Mr
     Arthur Clennam had recommended him to the Plornishes (he lived at the
             top of the same house), but still at heavy odds. However, the Bleeding
     Hearts were kind hearts; and when they saw the little fellow cheerily
     limping about with a good-humoured face, doing no harm, drawing no
     knives, committing no outrageous immoralities, living chiefly on
     farinaceous and milk diet, and playing with Mrs Plornish's children of
     an evening, they began to think that although he could never hope to be
     an Englishman, still it would be hard to visit that affliction on his
     head. They began to accommodate themselves to his level, calling him 'Mr
     Baptist,' but treating him like a baby, and laughing immoderately at his
     lively gestures and his childish English--more, because he didn't mind
     it, and laughed too. They spoke to him in very loud voices as if he
     were stone deaf. They constructed sentences, by way of teaching him the
     language in its purity, such as were addressed by the savages to Captain
     Cook, or by Friday to Robinson Crusoe. Mrs Plornish was particularly
     ingenious in this art; and attained so much celebrity for saying 'Me ope
     you leg well soon,' that it was considered in the Yard but a very short
     remove indeed from speaking Italian. Even Mrs Plornish herself began to
     think that she had a natural call towards that language. As he became
     more popular, household objects were brought into requisition for his
     instruction in a copious vocabulary; and whenever he appeared in the
     Yard ladies would fly out at their doors crying 'Mr Baptist--tea-pot!'
     'Mr Baptist--dust-pan!' 'Mr Baptist--flour-dredger!' 'Mr
     Baptist--coffee-biggin!' At the same time exhibiting those articles,
     and penetrating him with a sense of the appalling difficulties of the
     Anglo-Saxon tongue.

     It was in this stage of his progress, and in about the third week of his
     occupation, that Mr Pancks's fancy became attracted by the little man.
     Mounting to his attic, attended by Mrs Plornish as interpreter, he found
     Mr Baptist with no furniture but his bed on the ground, a table, and a
     chair, carving with the aid of a few simple tools, in the blithest way
     possible.

     'Now, old chap,' said Mr Pancks, 'pay up!'

     He had his money ready, folded in a scrap of paper, and laughingly
     handed it in; then with a free action, threw out as many fingers of his
     right hand as there were shillings, and made a cut crosswise in the air
     for an odd sixpence.

     'Oh!' said Mr Pancks, watching him, wonderingly. 'That's it, is it?
     You're a quick customer. It's all right. I didn't expect to receive it,
     though.'

     Mrs Plornish here interposed with great condescension, and explained to
     Mr Baptist. 'E please. E glad get money.'

     The little man smiled and nodded. His bright face seemed uncommonly
     attractive to Mr Pancks. 'How's he getting on in his limb?' he asked Mrs
     Plornish.

     'Oh, he's a deal better, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'We expect next week
     he'll be able to leave off his stick entirely.' (The opportunity
             being too favourable to be lost, Mrs Plornish displayed her great
             accomplishment by explaining with pardonable pride to Mr Baptist, 'E ope
             you leg well soon.')

     'He's a merry fellow, too,' said Mr Pancks, admiring him as if he were a
     mechanical toy. 'How does he live?'

     'Why, sir,' rejoined Mrs Plornish, 'he turns out to have quite a power
     of carving them flowers that you see him at now.' (Mr Baptist, watching
             their faces as they spoke, held up his work. Mrs Plornish interpreted in
             her Italian manner, on behalf of Mr Pancks, 'E please. Double good!')

     'Can he live by that?' asked Mr Pancks.

     'He can live on very little, sir, and it is expected as he will be able,
     in time, to make a very good living. Mr Clennam got it him to do, and
     gives him odd jobs besides in at the Works next door--makes 'em for him,
     in short, when he knows he wants 'em.'

     'And what does he do with himself, now, when he ain't hard at it?' said
     Mr Pancks.

     'Why, not much as yet, sir, on accounts I suppose of not being able to
     walk much; but he goes about the Yard, and he chats without particular
     understanding or being understood, and he plays with the children,
     and he sits in the sun--he'll sit down anywhere, as if it was an
     arm-chair--and he'll sing, and he'll laugh!'

     'Laugh!' echoed Mr Pancks. 'He looks to me as if every tooth in his head
     was always laughing.'

     'But whenever he gets to the top of the steps at t'other end of the
     Yard,' said Mrs Plornish, 'he'll peep out in the curiousest way! So that
     some of us thinks he's peeping out towards where his own country is, and
     some of us thinks he's looking for somebody he don't want to see, and
     some of us don't know what to think.'

     Mr Baptist seemed to have a general understanding of what she said; or
     perhaps his quickness caught and applied her slight action of peeping.
     In any case he closed his eyes and tossed his head with the air of a man
     who had sufficient reasons for what he did, and said in his own tongue,
     it didn't matter. Altro!

     'What's Altro?' said Pancks.

     'Hem! It's a sort of a general kind of expression, sir,' said Mrs
     Plornish.

     'Is it?' said Pancks. 'Why, then Altro to you, old chap. Good afternoon.
     Altro!'

     Mr Baptist in his vivacious way repeating the word several times, Mr
     Pancks in his duller way gave it him back once. From that time it became
     a frequent custom with Pancks the gipsy, as he went home jaded at night,
     to pass round by Bleeding Heart Yard, go quietly up the stairs, look in
     at Mr Baptist's door, and, finding him in his room, to say, 'Hallo, old
     chap! Altro!' To which Mr Baptist would reply with innumerable bright
     nods and smiles, 'Altro, signore, altro, altro, altro!' After this
     highly condensed conversation, Mr Pancks would go his way with an
     appearance of being lightened and refreshed.

 OK, mysterious meeting time at Pancks's house. His landlord, Mr. Rugg, is there. So is Miss Rugg, Mr. Rugg's daughter, whose main claim to fame is that she sued a former fiance for breach of contract for breaking off an engagement - and won! That's right, folks - that was the law back then. Also there is Young John Chivery - the dude who's in love with Little Dorrit. Turns out, Pancks has been working overtime sending these people out to mysterious destinations all over the greater metropolitan London area. We don't know why. They all drink a toast to their new assignments, and all is well. The other thing Pancks likes to do is check up on Cavalletto, who has moved into Bleeding Heart Yard and is now being called Mr. Baptist by the people who live there . He's a constantly happy guy, despite the fact that he is clearly dirt poor. It's a good thing he's so good-natured, because the English? They aren't the most foreigner-friendly of people. Mrs. Plornish talks to him in a crazy-sounding broken English that makes her sound very smart to her neighbors and very idiotic to the reader. But he doesn't mind and takes everything in stride. Mr. Baptist has his rent on time. Apparently he whittles little flowers to sell, and Arthur gives him odd jobs every now and again. But, Mrs. Plornish tells Pancks that sometimes Mr. Baptist gets scared and starts peering around the corners of buildings as if he's looking for someone he doesn't want to see. Hmm... who could that be?

