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

were a little overgrown, it was upon substantial grounds. The last of the Patriarchs had always been a mighty eater, and he disposed of an immense quantity of solid food with the benignity of a good soul who was feeding someone else. Mr. Pancks, who was always in a hurry, and who referred at intervals to a little dirty notebook which he kept beside him (perhaps containing the names of the defaulters he meant to look up by way of dessert), took in his victuals much as if he were coaling; with a good deal of noise, a good deal of dropping about, and a puff and a snort occasionally, as if he were nearly ready to steam away.

All through dinner, Flora combined her present appetite for eating and drinking with her past appetite for romantic love, in a way that made Clennam afraid to lift his eyes from his plate; since he could not look towards her without receiving some glance of mysterious meaning or warning, as if they were engaged in a plot. Mr. F.’s Aunt sat silently defying him with an aspect of the greatest bitterness, until the removal of the cloth and the appearance of the decanters, when she originated another observation⁠—struck into the conversation like a clock, without consulting anybody.

Flora had just said, “Mr. Clennam, will you give me a glass of port for Mr. F.’s Aunt?”

“The Monument near London Bridge,” that lady instantly proclaimed, “was put up arter the Great Fire of London; and the Great Fire of London was not the fire in which your uncle George’s workshops was burned down.”

Mr. Pancks, with his former courage, said, “Indeed, ma’am? All right!” But appearing to be incensed by imaginary contradiction, or other ill-usage, Mr. F.’s Aunt instead of relapsing into silence, made the following additional proclamation:

“I hate a fool!”

She imparted to this sentiment, in itself almost Solomonic, so extremely injurious and personal a character by levelling it straight at the visitor’s head, that it became necessary to lead Mr. F.’s Aunt from the room. This was quietly done by Flora; Mr. F.’s Aunt offering no resistance, but inquiring on her way out, “What he come there for, then?” with implacable animosity.

When Flora returned, she explained that her legacy was a clever old lady, but was sometimes a little singular, and “took dislikes”⁠—peculiarities of which Flora seemed to be proud rather than otherwise. As Flora’s good nature shone in the case, Clennam had no fault to find with the old lady for eliciting it, now that he was relieved from the terrors of her presence; and they took a glass or two of wine in peace. Foreseeing then that the Pancks would shortly get under weigh, and that the Patriarch would go to sleep, he pleaded the necessity of visiting his mother, and asked Mr. Pancks in which direction he was going?

“Citywards, sir,” said Pancks.

“Shall we walk together?” said Arthur.

“Quite agreeable,” said Pancks.

Meanwhile Flora was murmuring in rapid snatches for his ear, that there was a time and that the past was a yawning gulf however and that a golden chain no longer bound him and that she revered the memory of the late Mr. F. and that she should be at home tomorrow at half-past one and that the decrees of Fate were beyond recall and that she considered nothing so improbable as that he ever walked on the northwest side of Gray’s-Inn Gardens at exactly four o’clock in the afternoon. He tried at parting to give his hand in frankness to the existing Flora⁠—not the vanished Flora, or the mermaid⁠—but Flora wouldn’t have it, couldn’t have it, was wholly destitute of the power of separating herself and him from their bygone characters. He left the house miserably enough; and so much more lightheaded than ever, that if it had not been his good fortune to be towed away, he might, for the first quarter of an hour, have drifted anywhere.

When he began to come to himself, in the cooler air and the absence of Flora, he found Pancks at full speed, cropping such scanty pasturage of nails as he could find, and snorting at intervals. These, in conjunction with one hand in his pocket and his roughened hat hind side before, were evidently the conditions under which he reflected.

“A fresh night!” said Arthur.

“Yes, it’s pretty fresh,” assented Pancks. “As a stranger you feel the climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven’t got time to feel it.”

“You lead such a busy life?”

“Yes, I have always some of ’em to look up, or something to look after. But I like business,” said Pancks, getting on a little faster. “What’s a man made for?”

“For nothing else?” said Clennam.

Pancks put the counter question, “What else?” It packed up, in the smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam’s life; and he made no answer.

“That’s what I ask our weekly tenants,” said Pancks. “Some of ’em will pull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we’re always grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we’re awake. I say to them, What else are you made for? It shuts them up. They haven’t a word to answer. What else are you made for? That clinches it.”

“Ah dear, dear, dear!” sighed Clennam.

“Here am I,” said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant. “What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and I’ll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.”

When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: “Have you no taste for anything, Mr. Pancks?”

“What’s taste?” drily retorted Pancks.

“Let us say inclination.”

“I have an inclination to get money, sir,” said Pancks, “if you will show me how.” He blew