Little Dorrit, Charles Dickens [big ebook reader txt] 📗

with any of her family? You never heard of ’em. You can’t be acquainted with people you never heard of, can you? You should think not!”

All this time the Patriarch sat serenely smiling; nodding or shaking his head benevolently, as the case required.

“As to being a reference,” said Pancks, “you know, in a general way, what being a reference means. It’s all your eye, that is! Look at your tenants down the Yard here. They’d all be references for one another, if you’d let ’em. What would be the good of letting ’em? It’s no satisfaction to be done by two men instead of one. One’s enough. A person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking match. And four wooden legs are more troublesome to you than two, when you don’t want any.” Mr. Pancks concluded by blowing off that steam of his.

A momentary silence that ensued was broken by Mr. F.’s Aunt, who had been sitting upright in a cataleptic state since her last public remark. She now underwent a violent twitch, calculated to produce a startling effect on the nerves of the uninitiated, and with the deadliest animosity observed:

“You can’t make a head and brains out of a brass knob with nothing in it. You couldn’t do it when your Uncle George was living; much less when he’s dead.”

Mr. Pancks was not slow to reply, with his usual calmness, “Indeed, ma’am! Bless my soul! I’m surprised to hear it.” Despite his presence of mind, however, the speech of Mr. F.’s Aunt produced a depressing effect on the little assembly; firstly, because it was impossible to disguise that Clennam’s unoffending head was the particular temple of reason depreciated; and secondly, because nobody ever knew on these occasions whose Uncle George was referred to, or what spectral presence might be invoked under that appellation.

Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain boastfulness and triumph in her legacy, that Mr. F.’s Aunt was “very lively today, and she thought they had better go.” But Mr. F.’s Aunt proved so lively as to take the suggestion in unexpected dudgeon and declare that she would not go; adding, with several injurious expressions, that if “He”⁠—too evidently meaning Clennam⁠—wanted to get rid of her, “let him chuck her out of winder;” and urgently expressing her desire to see “Him” perform that ceremony.

In this dilemma, Mr. Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any emergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped out at the countinghouse door, and slipped in again a moment afterwards with an artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been in the country for some weeks. “Why, bless my heart, ma’am!” said Mr. Pancks, rubbing up his hair in great astonishment, “is that you? How do you do, ma’am? You are looking charming today! I am delighted to see you. Favour me with your arm, ma’am; we’ll have a little walk together, you and me, if you’ll honour me with your company.” And so escorted Mr. F.’s Aunt down the private staircase of the countinghouse with great gallantry and success. The patriarchal Mr. Casby then rose with the air of having done it himself, and blandly followed: leaving his daughter, as she followed in her turn, to remark to her former lover in a distracted whisper (which she very much enjoyed), that they had drained the cup of life to the dregs; and further to hint mysteriously that the late Mr. F. was at the bottom of it.

Alone again, Clennam became a prey to his old doubts in reference to his mother and Little Dorrit, and revolved the old thoughts and suspicions. They were all in his mind, blending themselves with the duties he was mechanically discharging, when a shadow on his papers caused him to look up for the cause. The cause was Mr. Pancks. With his hat thrown back upon his ears as if his wiry prongs of hair had darted up like springs and cast it off, with his jet-black beads of eyes inquisitively sharp, with the fingers of his right hand in his mouth that he might bite the nails, and with the fingers of his left hand in reserve in his pocket for another course, Mr. Pancks cast his shadow through the glass upon the books and papers.

Mr. Pancks asked, with a little inquiring twist of his head, if he might come in again? Clennam replied with a nod of his head in the affirmative. Mr. Pancks worked his way in, came alongside the desk, made himself fast by leaning his arms upon it, and started conversation with a puff and a snort.

“Mr. F.’s Aunt is appeased, I hope?” said Clennam.

“All right, sir,” said Pancks.

“I am so unfortunate as to have awakened a strong animosity in the breast of that lady,” said Clennam. “Do you know why?”

“Does she know why?” said Pancks.

“I suppose not.”

“I suppose not,” said Pancks.

He took out his notebook, opened it, shut it, dropped it into his hat, which was beside him on the desk, and looked in at it as it lay at the bottom of the hat: all with a great appearance of consideration.

“Mr. Clennam,” he then began, “I am in want of information, sir.”

“Connected with this firm?” asked Clennam.

“No,” said Pancks.

“With what then, Mr. Pancks? That is to say, assuming that you want it of me.”

“Yes, sir; yes, I want it of you,” said Pancks, “if I can persuade you to furnish it. A, B, C, D. DA, DE, DI, DO. Dictionary order. Dorrit. That’s the name, sir?”

Mr. Pancks blew off his peculiar noise again, and fell to at his right-hand nails. Arthur looked searchingly at him; he returned the look.

“I don’t understand you, Mr. Pancks.”

“That’s the name that I want to know about.”

“And what do you want to know?”

“Whatever you can and will tell me.” This comprehensive