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

violent and audacious than before, Mr. Flintwinch, whose leathern face was not liable to many changes, preserved its immobility intact. Beyond now appearing perhaps, to have been left hanging a trifle too long before that friendly operation of cutting down, he outwardly maintained an equable composure. They had brought their survey to a close in the little room at the side of the hall, and he stood there, eyeing Mr. Blandois.

“I am glad you are so well satisfied, sir,” was his calm remark. “I didn’t expect it. You seem to be quite in good spirits.”

“In admirable spirits,” returned Blandois. “Word of honour! never more refreshed in spirits. Do you ever have presentiments, Mr. Flintwinch?”

“I am not sure that I know what you mean by the term, sir,” replied that gentleman.

“Say, in this case, Mr. Flintwinch, undefined anticipations of pleasure to come.”

“I can’t say I’m sensible of such a sensation at present,” returned Mr. Flintwinch with the utmost gravity. “If I should find it coming on, I’ll mention it.”

“Now I,” said Blandois, “I, my son, have a presentiment tonight that we shall be well acquainted. Do you find it coming on?”

“N-no,” returned Mr. Flintwinch, deliberately inquiring of himself. “I can’t say I do.”

“I have a strong presentiment that we shall become intimately acquainted.⁠—You have no feeling of that sort yet?”

“Not yet,” said Mr. Flintwinch.

Mr. Blandois, taking him by both shoulders again, rolled him about a little in his former merry way, then drew his arm through his own, and invited him to come off and drink a bottle of wine like a dear deep old dog as he was.

Without a moment’s indecision, Mr. Flintwinch accepted the invitation, and they went out to the quarters where the traveller was lodged, through a heavy rain which had rattled on the windows, roofs, and pavements, ever since nightfall. The thunder and lightning had long ago passed over, but the rain was furious. On their arrival at Mr. Blandois’ room, a bottle of port wine was ordered by that gallant gentleman; who (crushing every pretty thing he could collect, in the soft disposition of his dainty figure) coiled himself upon the window-seat, while Mr. Flintwinch took a chair opposite to him, with the table between them. Mr. Blandois proposed having the largest glasses in the house, to which Mr. Flintwinch assented. The bumpers filled, Mr. Blandois, with a roystering gaiety, clinked the top of his glass against the bottom of Mr. Flintwinch’s, and the bottom of his glass against the top of Mr. Flintwinch’s, and drank to the intimate acquaintance he foresaw. Mr. Flintwinch gravely pledged him, and drank all the wine he could get, and said nothing. As often as Mr. Blandois clinked glasses (which was at every replenishment), Mr. Flintwinch stolidly did his part of the clinking, and would have stolidly done his companion’s part of the wine as well as his own: being, except in the article of palate, a mere cask.

In short, Mr. Blandois found that to pour port wine into the reticent Flintwinch was, not to open him but to shut him up. Moreover, he had the appearance of a perfect ability to go on all night; or, if occasion were, all next day and all next night; whereas Mr. Blandois soon grew indistinctly conscious of swaggering too fiercely and boastfully. He therefore terminated the entertainment at the end of the third bottle.

“You will draw upon us tomorrow, sir,” said Mr. Flintwinch, with a businesslike face at parting.

“My Cabbage,” returned the other, taking him by the collar with both hands, “I’ll draw upon you; have no fear. Adieu, my Flintwinch. Receive at parting;” here he gave him a southern embrace, and kissed him soundly on both cheeks; “the word of a gentleman! By a thousand thunders, you shall see me again!”

He did not present himself next day, though the letter of advice came duly to hand. Inquiring after him at night, Mr. Flintwinch found, with surprise, that he had paid his bill and gone back to the Continent by way of Calais. Nevertheless, Jeremiah scraped out of his cogitating face a lively conviction that Mr. Blandois would keep his word on this occasion, and would be seen again.

XXXI Spirit

Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the heavens dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping along with a scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened by the noise and bustle. This old man is always a little old man. If he were ever a big old man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were always a little old man, he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat is a colour, and cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period. Clearly, it was not made for him, or for any individual mortal. Some wholesale contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such quality, and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a long unfinished line of many old men. It has always large dull metal buttons, similar to no other buttons. This old man wears a hat, a thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never adapted itself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and his coarse neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they have the same character of not being his⁠—of not being anybody’s. Yet this old man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being dressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the greater part of his time in a nightcap and gown. And so, like the country mouse in the second year of a famine, come to see the town mouse, and timidly threading his way to the town-mouse’s lodging through a city of cats, this old man passes in the streets.

Sometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk