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

authentic portrait of Misfortune which could scarcely be discerned through its want of cleaning.

“Mr. Clennam, had you laid out⁠—everything?” He got over the break before the last word, and also brought out the last word itself with great difficulty.

“Everything.”

Mr. Pancks took hold of his tough hair again, and gave it such a wrench that he pulled out several prongs of it. After looking at these with an eye of wild hatred, he put them in his pocket.

“My course,” said Clennam, brushing away some tears that had been silently dropping down his face, “must be taken at once. What wretched amends I can make must be made. I must clear my unfortunate partner’s reputation. I must retain nothing for myself. I must resign to our creditors the power of management I have so much abused, and I must work out as much of my fault⁠—or crime⁠—as is susceptible of being worked out in the rest of my days.”

“Is it impossible, sir, to tide over the present?”

“Out of the question. Nothing can be tided over now, Pancks. The sooner the business can pass out of my hands, the better for it. There are engagements to be met, this week, which would bring the catastrophe before many days were over, even if I would postpone it for a single day by going on for that space, secretly knowing what I know. All last night I thought of what I would do; what remains is to do it.”

“Not entirely of yourself?” said Pancks, whose face was as damp as if his steam were turning into water as fast as he dismally blew it off. “Have some legal help.”

“Perhaps I had better.”

“Have Rugg.”

“There is not much to do. He will do it as well as another.”

“Shall I fetch Rugg, Mr. Clennam?”

“If you could spare the time, I should be much obliged to you.”

Mr. Pancks put on his hat that moment, and steamed away to Pentonville. While he was gone Arthur never raised his head from the desk, but remained in that one position.

Mr. Pancks brought his friend and professional adviser, Mr. Rugg, back with him. Mr. Rugg had had such ample experience, on the road, of Mr. Pancks’s being at that present in an irrational state of mind, that he opened his professional mediation by requesting that gentleman to take himself out of the way. Mr. Pancks, crushed and submissive, obeyed.

“He is not unlike what my daughter was, sir, when we began the Breach of Promise action of Rugg and Bawkins, in which she was Plaintiff,” said Mr. Rugg. “He takes too strong and direct an interest in the case. His feelings are worked upon. There is no getting on, in our profession, with feelings worked upon, sir.”

As he pulled off his gloves and put them in his hat, he saw, in a side glance or two, that a great change had come over his client.

“I am sorry to perceive, sir,” said Mr. Rugg, “that you have been allowing your own feelings to be worked upon. Now, pray don’t, pray don’t. These losses are much to be deplored, sir, but we must look ’em in the face.”

“If the money I have sacrificed had been all my own, Mr. Rugg,” sighed Mr. Clennam, “I should have cared far less.”

“Indeed, sir?” said Mr. Rugg, rubbing his hands with a cheerful air. “You surprise me. That’s singular, sir. I have generally found, in my experience, that it’s their own money people are most particular about. I have seen people get rid of a good deal of other people’s money, and bear it very well: very well indeed.”

With these comforting remarks, Mr. Rugg seated himself on an office-stool at the desk and proceeded to business.

“Now, Mr. Clennam, by your leave, let us go into the matter. Let us see the state of the case. The question is simple. The question is the usual plain, straightforward, commonsense question. What can we do for ourself? What can we do for ourself?”

“This is not the question with me, Mr. Rugg,” said Arthur. “You mistake it in the beginning. It is, what can I do for my partner, how can I best make reparation to him?”

“I am afraid, sir, do you know,” argued Mr. Rugg persuasively, “that you are still allowing your feeling to be worked upon. I don’t like the term ‘reparation,’ sir, except as a lever in the hands of counsel. Will you excuse my saying that I feel it my duty to offer you the caution, that you really must not allow your feelings to be worked upon?”

“Mr. Rugg,” said Clennam, nerving himself to go through with what he had resolved upon, and surprising that gentleman by appearing, in his despondency, to have a settled determination of purpose; “you give me the impression that you will not be much disposed to adopt the course I have made up my mind to take. If your disapproval of it should render you unwilling to discharge such business as it necessitates, I am sorry for it, and must seek other aid. But I will represent to you at once, that to argue against it with me is useless.”

“Good, sir,” answered Mr. Rugg, shrugging his shoulders. “Good, sir. Since the business is to be done by some hands, let it be done by mine. Such was my principle in the case of Rugg and Bawkins. Such is my principle in most cases.”

Clennam then proceeded to state to Mr. Rugg his fixed resolution. He told Mr. Rugg that his partner was a man of great simplicity and integrity, and that in all he meant to do, he was guided above all things by a knowledge of his partner’s character, and a respect for his feelings. He explained that his partner was then absent on an enterprise of importance, and that it particularly behoved himself publicly to accept the blame of what he had rashly done, and publicly to exonerate his partner from all participation in the responsibility of it, lest the successful conduct of that enterprise should be endangered by the slightest suspicion wrongly attaching to his partner’s honour and credit in another country. He told Mr. Rugg