BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY - CHAPTER 10 Containing the whole Science of Government

The Circumlocution Office was (as everybody knows without being

told) the most important Department under Government. No public

business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the

acquiescence of the Circumlocution Office. Its finger was in the

largest public pie, and in the smallest public tart. It was

equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the

plainest wrong without the express authority of the Circumlocution

Office. If another Gunpowder Plot had been discovered half an hour

before the lighting of the match, nobody would have been justified

in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of

boards, half a bushel of minutes, several sacks of official

memoranda, and a family-vault full of ungrammatical correspondence,

on the part of the Circumlocution Office.

This glorious establishment had been early in the field, when the

one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a

country, was first distinctly revealed to statesmen. It had been

foremost to study that bright revelation and to carry its shining

influence through the whole of the official proceedings. Whatever

was required to be done, the Circumlocution Office was beforehand

with all the public departments in the art of perceiving--HOW NOT

TO DO IT.

Through this delicate perception, through the tact with which it

invariably seized it, and through the genius with which it always

acted on it, the Circumlocution Office had risen to overtop all the

public departments; and the public condition had risen to be--what

it was.

It is true that How not to do it was the great study and object of

all public departments and professional politicians all round the

Circumlocution Office. It is true that every new premier and every

new government, coming in because they had upheld a certain thing

as necessary to be done, were no sooner come in than they applied

their utmost faculties to discovering How not to do it. It is true

that from the moment when a general election was over, every

returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been

done, and who had been asking the friends of the honourable

gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell

him why it hadn't been done, and who had been asserting that it

must be done, and who had been pledging himself that it should be

done, began to devise, How it was not to be done. It is true that

the debates of both Houses of Parliament the whole session through,

uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation, How not to do it.

It is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session

virtually said, My lords and gentlemen, you have a considerable

stroke of work to do, and you will please to retire to your

respective chambers, and discuss, How not to do it. It is true

that the royal speech, at the close of such session, virtually

said, My lords and gentlemen, you have through several laborious

months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism, How not

to do it, and you have found out; and with the blessing of

Providence upon the harvest (natural, not political), I now dismiss

you. All this

is true, but the Circumlocution Office went beyond it.

Because the Circumlocution Office went on mechanically, every day,

keeping this wonderful, all-sufficient wheel of statesmanship, How

not to do it, in motion. Because the Circumlocution Office was

down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it, or

who appeared to be by any surprising accident in remote danger of

doing it, with a minute, and a memorandum, and a letter of

instructions that extinguished him. It was this spirit of national

efficiency in the Circumlocution Office that had gradually led to

its having something to do with everything. Mechanicians, natural

philosophers, soldiers, sailors, petitioners, memorialists, people

with grievances, people who wanted to prevent grievances, people

who wanted to redress grievances, jobbing people, jobbed people,

people who couldn't get rewarded for merit, and people who couldn't

get punished for demerit, were all indiscriminately tucked up under

the foolscap paper of the Circumlocution Office.

Numbers of people were lost in the Circumlocution Office.

Unfortunates with wrongs, or with projects for the general welfare

(and they had better have had wrongs at first, than have taken that

bitter English recipe for certainly getting them), who in slow

lapse of time and agony had passed safely through other public

departments; who, according to rule, had been bullied in this,

over-reached by that, and evaded by the other; got referred at last

to the Circumlocution Office, and never reappeared in the light of

day. Boards sat upon them, secretaries minuted upon them,

commissioners gabbled about them, clerks registered, entered,

checked, and ticked them off, and they melted away. In short, all

the business of the country went through the Circumlocution Office,

except the business that never came out of it; and its name was

Legion.

Sometimes, angry spirits attacked the Circumlocution Office.

Sometimes, parliamentary questions were asked about it, and even

parliamentary motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so

low and ignorant as to hold that the real recipe of government was,

How to do it. Then would the noble lord, or right honourable

gentleman, in whose department it was to defend the Circumlocution

Office, put an orange in his pocket, and make a regular field-day

of the occasion. Then would he come down to that house with a slap

upon the table, and meet the honourable gentleman foot to foot.

Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that the

Circumlocution Office not only was blameless in this matter, but

was commendable in this matter, was extollable to the skies in this

matter. Then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman

that, although the Circumlocution Office was invariably right and

wholly right, it never was so right as in this matter. Then would

he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that it would have

been more to his honour, more to his credit, more to his good

taste, more to his good sense, more to half the dictionary of

commonplaces, if he had left the Circumlocution Office alone, and

never approached this matter. Then would he keep one eye upon a

coach or crammer from the Circumlocution Office sitting below the

bar, and smash the honourable gentleman with the Circumlocution

Office account of this matter. And although one of two things

always happened; namely, either that the Circumlocution Office had

nothing to say and said it, or that it had something to say of

which the noble lord, or right honourable gentleman, blundered one

half and forgot the other; the Circumlocution Office was always

voted immaculate by an accommodating majority.

Such a nursery of statesmen had the Department become in virtue of

a long career of this nature, that several solemn lords had

attained the reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of

business, solely from having practised, How not to do it, as the

head of the Circumlocution Office. As to the minor priests and

acolytes of that temple, the result of all this was that they stood

divided into two classes, and, down to the junior messenger, either

believed in the Circumlocution Office as a heaven-born institution

that had an absolute right to do whatever it liked; or took refuge

in total infidelity, and considered it a flagrant nuisance.

The Barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the

Circumlocution Office. The Tite Barnacle Branch, indeed,

considered themselves in a general way as having vested rights in

that direction, and took it ill if any other family had much to say

to it. The Barnacles were a very high family, and a very large

family. They were dispersed all over the public offices, and held

all sorts of public places. Either the nation was under a load of

obligation to the Barnacles, or the Barnacles were under a load of

obligation to the nation. It was not quite unanimously settled

which; the Barnacles having their opinion, the nation theirs.

The Mr Tite Barnacle who at the period now in question usually

coached or crammed the statesman at the head of the Circumlocution

Office, when that noble or right honourable individual sat a little

uneasily in his saddle by reason of some vagabond making a tilt at

him in a newspaper, was more flush of blood than money. As a

Barnacle he had his place, which was a snug thing enough; and as a

Barnacle he had of course put in his son Barnacle Junior in the

office. But he had intermarried with a branch of the

Stiltstalkings, who were also better endowed in a sanguineous point

of view than with real or personal property, and of this marriage

there had been issue, Barnacle junior and three young ladies. What

with the patrician requirements of Barnacle junior, the three young

ladies, Mrs Tite Barnacle nee Stiltstalking, and himself, Mr Tite

Barnacle found the intervals between quarter day and quarter day

rather longer than he could have desired; a circumstance which he

always attributed to the country's parsimony.

For Mr Tite Barnacle, Mr Arthur Clennam made his fifth inquiry one

day at the Circumlocution Office; having on previous occasions

awaited that gentleman successively in a hall, a glass case, a

waiting room, and a fire-proof passage where the Department seemed

to keep its wind. On this occasion Mr Barnacle was not engaged, as

he had been before, with the noble prodigy at the head of the

Department; but was absent. Barnacle Junior, however, was

announced as a lesser star, yet visible above the office horizon.

With Barnacle junior, he signified his desire to confer; and found

that young gentleman singeing the calves of his legs at the

parental fire, and supporting his spine against the mantel-shelf.

It was a comfortable room, handsomely furnished in the higher

official manner; an presenting stately suggestions of the absent

Barnacle, in the thick carpet, the leather-covered desk to sit at,

the leather-covered desk to stand at, the formidable easy-chair and

hearth-rug, the interposed screen, the torn-up papers, the

dispatch-boxes with little labels sticking out of them, like

medicine bottles or dead game, the pervading smell of leather and

mahogany, and a general bamboozling air of How not to do it.

The present Barnacle, holding Mr Clennam's card in his hand, had a

youthful aspect, and the fluffiest little whisker, perhaps, that

ever was seen. Such a downy tip was on his callow chin, that he

seemed half fledged like a young bird; and a compassionate observer

might have urged that, if he had not singed the calves of his legs,

he would have died of cold. He had a superior eye-glass dangling

round his neck, but unfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes

and such limp little eyelids that it wouldn't stick in when he put

it up, but kept tumbling out against his waistcoat buttons with a

click that discomposed him very much.

'Oh, I say. Look here! My father's not in the way, and won't be

in the way to-day,' said Barnacle Junior. 'Is this anything that

I can do?'

(Click! Eye-glass down. Barnacle Junior quite frightened and

feeling all round himself, but not able to find it.)

'You are very good,' said Arthur Clennam. 'I wish however to see

Mr Barnacle.'

'But I say. Look here! You haven't got any appointment, you

know,' said Barnacle Junior.

(By this time he had found the eye-glass, and put it up again.)

'No,' said Arthur Clennam. 'That is what I wish to have.'

'But I say. Look here! Is this public business?' asked Barnacle

junior.

(Click! Eye-glass down again. Barnacle Junior in that state of

search after it that Mr Clennam felt it useless to reply at

present.)

'Is it,' said Barnacle junior, taking heed of his visitor's brown

face, 'anything about--Tonnage--or that sort of thing?'

(Pausing for a reply, he opened his right eye with his hand, and

stuck his glass in it, in that inflammatory manner that his eye

began watering dreadfully.)

'No,' said Arthur, 'it is nothing about tonnage.'

'Then look here. Is it private business?'

'I really am not sure. It relates to a Mr Dorrit.'

'Look here, I tell you what! You had better call at our house, if

you are going that way. Twenty-four, Mews Street, Grosvenor

Square. My father's got a slight touch of the gout, and is kept at

home by it.'

(The misguided young Barnacle evidently going blind on his eye-

glass side, but ashamed to make any further alteration in his

painful arrangements.)

'Thank you. I will call there now. Good morning.' Young Barnacle

seemed discomfited at this, as not having at all expected him to

go.

'You are quite sure,' said Barnacle junior, calling after him when

he got to the door, unwilling wholly to relinquish the bright

business idea he had conceived; 'that it's nothing about Tonnage?'

'Quite sure.'

With such assurance, and rather wondering what might have taken

place if it HAD been anything about tonnage, Mr Clennam withdrew to

pursue his inquiries.

Mews Street, Grosvenor Square, was not absolutely Grosvenor Square

itself, but it was very near it. It was a hideous little street of

dead wall, stables, and dunghills, with lofts over coach-houses

inhabited by coachmen's families, who had a passion for drying

clothes and decorating their window-sills with miniature turnpike-

gates. The principal chimney-sweep of that fashionable quarter

lived at the blind end of Mews Street; and the same corner

contained an establishment much frequented about early morning and

twilight for the purchase of wine-bottles and kitchen-stuff.

Punch's shows used to lean against the dead wall in Mews Street,

while their proprietors were dining elsewhere; and the dogs of the

neighbourhood made appointments to meet in the same locality. Yet

there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of

Mews Street, which went at enormous rents on account of their being

abject hangers-on to a fashionable situation; and whenever one of

these fearful little coops was to be let (which seldom happened,

for they were in great request), the house agent advertised it as

a gentlemanly residence in the most aristocratic part of town,

inhabited solely by the elite of the beau monde.

If a gentlemanly residence coming strictly within this narrow

margin had not been essential to the blood of the Barnacles, this

particular branch would have had a pretty wide selection among, let

us say, ten thousand houses, offering fifty times the accommodation

for a third of the money. As it was, Mr Barnacle, finding his

gentlemanly residence extremely inconvenient and extremely dear,

always laid it, as a public servant, at the door of the country,

and adduced it as another instance of the country's parsimony.

Arthur Clennam came to a squeezed house, with a ramshackle bowed

front, little dingy windows, and a little dark area like a damp

waistcoat-pocket, which he found to be number twenty-four, Mews

Street, Grosvenor Square. To the sense of smell the house was like

a sort of bottle filled with a strong distillation of Mews; and

when the footman opened the door, he seemed to take the stopper

out.

The footman was to the Grosvenor Square footmen, what the house was

to the Grosvenor Square houses. Admirable in his way, his way was

a back and a bye way. His gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt;

and both in complexion and consistency he had suffered from the

closeness of his pantry. A sallow flabbiness was upon him when he

took the stopper out, and presented the bottle to Mr Clennam's

nose.

'Be so good as to give that card to Mr Tite Barnacle, and to say

that I have just now seen the younger Mr Barnacle, who recommended

me to call here.'

The footman (who had as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest

upon them on the flaps of his pockets, as if he were the family

strong box, and carried the plate and jewels about with him

buttoned up) pondered over the card a little; then said, 'Walk in.'

It required some judgment to do it without butting the inner hall-

door open, and in the consequent mental confusion and physical

darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs. The visitor, however,

brought himself up safely on the door-mat.

Still the footman said 'Walk in,' so the visitor followed him. At

the inner hall-door, another bottle seemed to be presented and

another stopper taken out. This second vial appeared to be filled

with concentrated provisions and extract of Sink from the pantry.

After a skirmish in the narrow passage, occasioned by the footman's

opening the door of the dismal dining-room with confidence, finding

some one there with consternation, and backing on the visitor with

disorder, the visitor was shut up, pending his announcement, in a

close back parlour. There he had an opportunity of refreshing

himself with both the bottles at once, looking out at a low

blinding wall three feet off, and speculating on the number of

Barnacle families within the bills of mortality who lived in such

hutches of their own free flunkey choice.

Mr Barnacle would see him. Would he walk up-stairs? He would, and

he did; and in the drawing-room, with his leg on a rest, he found

Mr Barnacle himself, the express image and presentment of How not

to do it.

Mr Barnacle dated from a better time, when the country was not so

parsimonious and the Circumlocution Office was not so badgered. He

wound and wound folds of white cravat round his neck, as he wound

and wound folds of tape and paper round the neck of the country.

His wristbands and collar were oppressive; his voice and manner

were oppressive. He had a large watch-chain and bunch of seals, a

coat buttoned up to inconvenience, a waistcoat buttoned up to

inconvenience, an unwrinkled pair of trousers, a stiff pair of

boots. He was altogether splendid, massive, overpowering, and

impracticable. He seemed to have been sitting for his portrait to

Sir Thomas Lawrence all the days of his life.

'Mr Clennam?' said Mr Barnacle. 'Be seated.'

Mr Clennam became seated.

'You have called on me, I believe,' said Mr Barnacle, 'at the

Circumlocution--' giving it the air of a word of about five-and-

twenty syllables--'Office.'

'I have taken that liberty.'

Mr Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who should say, 'I do not

deny that it is a liberty; proceed to take another liberty, and let

me know your business.'

'Allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China, am

quite a stranger at home, and have no personal motive or interest

in the inquiry I am about to make.'

Mr Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table, and, as if he were now

sitting for his portrait to a new and strange artist, appeared to

say to his visitor, 'If you will be good enough to take me with my

present lofty expression, I shall feel obliged.'

'I have found a debtor in the Marshalsea Prison of the name of

Dorrit, who has been there many years. I wish to investigate his

confused affairs so far as to ascertain whether it may not be

possible, after this lapse of time, to ameliorate his unhappy

condition. The name of Mr Tite Barnacle has been mentioned to me

as representing some highly influential interest among his

creditors. Am I correctly informed?'

It being one of the principles of the Circumlocution Office never,

on any account whatever, to give a straightforward answer, Mr

Barnacle said, 'Possibly.'

'On behalf of the Crown, may I ask, or as private individual?'

'The Circumlocution Department, sir,' Mr Barnacle replied, 'may

have possibly recommended--possibly--I cannot say--that some public

claim against the insolvent estate of a firm or copartnership to

which this person may have belonged, should be enforced. The

question may have been, in the course of official business,

referred to the Circumlocution Department for its consideration.

The Department may have either originated, or confirmed, a Minute

making that recommendation.'

'I assume this to be the case, then.'

'The Circumlocution Department,' said Mr Barnacle, 'is not

responsible for any gentleman's assumptions.'

'May I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real

state of the case?'

'It is competent,' said Mr Barnacle, 'to any member of the--

Public,' mentioning that obscure body with reluctance, as his

natural enemy, 'to memorialise the Circumlocution Department. Such

formalities as are required to be observed in so doing, may be

known on application to the proper branch of that Department.'

'Which is the proper branch?'

'I must refer you,' returned Mr Barnacle, ringing the bell, 'to the

Department itself for a formal answer to that inquiry.'

'Excuse my mentioning--'

'The Department is accessible to the--Public,' Mr Barnacle was

always checked a little by that word of impertinent signification,

'if the--Public approaches it according to the official forms; if

the--Public does not approach it according to the official forms,

the--Public has itself to blame.'

Mr Barnacle made him a severe bow, as a wounded man of family, a

wounded man of place, and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence,

all rolled into one; and he made Mr Barnacle a bow, and was shut

out into Mews Street by the flabby footman.

Having got to this pass, he resolved as an exercise in

perseverance, to betake himself again to the Circumlocution Office,

and try what satisfaction he could get there. So he went back to

the Circumlocution Office, and once more sent up his card to

Barnacle junior by a messenger who took it very ill indeed that he

should come back again, and who was eating mashed potatoes and

gravy behind a partition by the hall fire.

He was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle junior, and found

that young gentleman singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary

way on to four o'clock.

'I say. Look here. You stick to us in a devil of a manner,' Said

Barnacle junior, looking over his shoulder.

'I want to know--'

'Look here. Upon my soul you mustn't come into the place saying

you want to know, you know,' remonstrated Barnacle junior, turning

about and putting up the eye-glass.

'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to

persistence in one short form of words, 'the precise nature of the

claim of the Crown against a prisoner for debt, named Dorrit.'

'I say. Look here. You really are going it at a great pace, you

know. Egad, you haven't got an appointment,' said Barnacle junior,

as if the thing were growing serious.

'I want to know,' said Arthur, and repeated his case.

Barnacle junior stared at him until his eye-glass fell out, and

then put it in again and stared at him until it fell out again.

'You have no right to come this sort of move,' he then observed

with the greatest weakness. 'Look here. What do you mean? You

told me you didn't know whether it was public business or not.'

'I have now ascertained that it is public business,' returned the

suitor, 'and I want to know'--and again repeated his monotonous

inquiry.

Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a

defenceless way, 'Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn't come into

the place saying you want to know, you know!' The effect of that

upon Arthur Clennam was to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly

the same words and tone as before. The effect of that upon young

Barnacle was to make him a wonderful spectacle of failure and

helplessness.

'Well, I tell you what. Look here. You had better try the

Secretarial Department,' he said at last, sidling to the bell and

ringing it. 'Jenkinson,' to the mashed potatoes messenger, 'Mr

Wobbler!'

Arthur Clennam, who now felt that he had devoted himself to the

storming of the Circumlocution Office, and must go through with it,

accompanied the messenger to another floor of the building, where

that functionary pointed out Mr Wobbler's room. He entered that

apartment, and found two gentlemen sitting face to face at a large

and easy desk, one of whom was polishing a gun-barrel on his

pocket-handkerchief, while the other was spreading marmalade on

bread with a paper-knife.

'Mr Wobbler?' inquired the suitor.

Both gentlemen glanced at him, and seemed surprised at his

assurance.

'So he went,' said the gentleman with the gun-barrel, who was an

extremely deliberate speaker, 'down to his cousin's place, and took

the Dog with him by rail. Inestimable Dog. Flew at the porter

fellow when he was put into the dog-box, and flew at the guard when

he was taken out. He got half-a-dozen fellows into a Barn, and a

good supply of Rats, and timed the Dog. Finding the Dog able to do

it immensely, made the match, and heavily backed the Dog. When the

match came off, some devil of a fellow was bought over, Sir, Dog

was made drunk, Dog's master was cleaned out.'

'Mr Wobbler?' inquired the suitor.

The gentleman who was spreading the marmalade returned, without

looking up from that occupation, 'What did he call the Dog?'

'Called him Lovely,' said the other gentleman. 'Said the Dog was

the perfect picture of the old aunt from whom he had expectations.

Found him particularly like her when hocussed.'

'Mr Wobbler?' said the suitor.

Both gentlemen laughed for some time. The gentleman with the gun-

barrel, considering it, on inspection, in a satisfactory state,

referred it to the other; receiving confirmation of his views, he

fitted it into its place in the case before him, and took out the

stock and polished that, softly whistling.

'Mr Wobbler?' said the suitor.

'What's the matter?' then said Mr Wobbler, with his mouth full.

'I want to know--' and Arthur Clennam again mechanically set forth

what he wanted to know.

'Can't inform you,' observed Mr Wobbler, apparently to his lunch.

'Never heard of it. Nothing at all to do with it. Better try Mr

Clive, second door on the left in the next passage.'

'Perhaps he will give me the same answer.'

'Very likely. Don't know anything about it,' said Mr Wobbler.

The suitor turned away and had left the room, when the gentleman

with the gun called out 'Mister! Hallo!'

He looked in again.

'Shut the door after you. You're letting in a devil of a draught

here!'

A few steps brought him to the second door on the left in the next

passage. In that room he found three gentlemen; number one doing

nothing particular, number two doing nothing particular, number

three doing nothing particular. They seemed, however, to be more

directly concerned than the others had been in the effective

execution of the great principle of the office, as there was an

awful inner apartment with a double door, in which the

Circumlocution Sages appeared to be assembled in council, and out

of which there was an imposing coming of papers, and into which

there was an imposing going of papers, almost constantly; wherein

another gentleman, number four, was the active instrument.

'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam,--and again stated his case

in the same barrel-organ way. As number one referred him to number

two, and as number two referred him to number three, he had

occasion to state it three times before they all referred him to

number four, to whom he stated it again.

Number four was a vivacious, well-looking, well-dressed, agreeable

young fellow--he was a Barnacle, but on the more sprightly side of

the family--and he said in an easy way, 'Oh! you had better not

bother yourself about it, I think.'

'Not bother myself about it?'

'No! I recommend you not to bother yourself about it.'

This was such a new point of view that Arthur Clennam found himself

at a loss how to receive it.

'You can if you like. I can give you plenty of forms to fill up.

Lots of 'em here. You can have a dozen if you like. But you'll

never go on with it,' said number four.

'Would it be such hopeless work? Excuse me; I am a stranger in

England.'

'I don't say it would be hopeless,' returned number four, with a

frank smile. 'I don't express an opinion about that; I only

express an opinion about you. I don't think you'd go on with it.

However, of course, you can do as you like. I suppose there was a

failure in the performance of a contract, or something of that

kind, was there?'

'I really don't know.'

'Well! That you can find out. Then you'll find out what

Department the contract was in, and then you'll find out all about

it there.'

'I beg your pardon. How shall I find out?'

'Why, you'll--you'll ask till they tell you. Then you'll

memorialise that Department (according to regular forms which

you'll find out) for leave to memorialise this Department. If you

get it (which you may after a time), that memorial must be entered

in that Department, sent to be registered in this Department, sent

back to be signed by that Department, sent back to be countersigned

by this Department, and then it will begin to be regularly before

that Department. You'll find out when the business passes through

each of these stages by asking at both Departments till they tell

you.'

'But surely this is not the way to do the business,' Arthur Clennam

could not help saying.

This airy young Barnacle was quite entertained by his simplicity in

supposing for a moment that it was. This light in hand young

Barnacle knew perfectly that it was not. This touch and go young

Barnacle had 'got up' the Department in a private secretaryship,

that he might be ready for any little bit of fat that came to hand;

and he fully understood the Department to be a politico-diplomatic

hocus pocus piece of machinery for the assistance of the nobs in

keeping off the snobs. This dashing young Barnacle, in a word, was

likely to become a statesman, and to make a figure.

'When the business is regularly before that Department, whatever it

is,' pursued this bright young Barnacle, 'then you can watch it

from time to time through that Department. When it comes regularly

before this Department, then you must watch it from time to time

through this Department. We shall have to refer it right and left;

and when we refer it anywhere, then you'll have to look it up.

When it comes back to us at any time, then you had better look US

up. When it sticks anywhere, you'll have to try to give it a jog.

When you write to another Department about it, and then to this

Department about it, and don't hear anything satisfactory about it,

why then you had better--keep on writing.'

Arthur Clennam looked very doubtful indeed. 'But I am obliged to

you at any rate,' said he, 'for your politeness.'

'Not at all,' replied this engaging young Barnacle. 'Try the

thing, and see how you like it. It will be in your power to give

it up at any time, if you don't like it. You had better take a lot

of forms away with you. Give him a lot of forms!' With which

instruction to number two, this sparkling young Barnacle took a

fresh handful of papers from numbers one and three, and carried

them into the sanctuary to offer to the presiding Idol of the

Circumlocution Office.

Arthur Clennam put his forms in his pocket gloomily enough, and

went his way down the long stone passage and the long stone

staircase. He had come to the swing doors leading into the street,

and was waiting, not over patiently, for two people who were

between him and them to pass out and let him follow, when the voice

of one of them struck familiarly on his ear. He looked at the

speaker and recognised Mr Meagles. Mr Meagles was very red in the

face--redder than travel could have made him--and collaring a short

man who was with him, said, 'come out, you rascal, come Out!'

it was such an unexpected hearing, and it was also such an

unexpected sight to see Mr Meagles burst the swing doors open, and

emerge into the street with the short man, who was of an

unoffending appearance, that Clennam stood still for the moment

exchanging looks of surprise with the porter. He followed,

however, quickly; and saw Mr Meagles going down the street with his

enemy at his side. He soon came up with his old travelling

companion, and touched him on the back. The choleric face which Mr

Meagles turned upon him smoothed when he saw who it was, and he put

out his friendly hand.

'How are you?' said Mr Meagles. 'How d'ye do? I have only just

come over from abroad. I am glad to see you.'

'And I am rejoiced to see you.'

'Thank'ee. Thank'ee!'

'Mrs Meagles and your daughter--?'

'Are as well as possible,' said Mr Meagles. 'I only wish you had

come upon me in a more prepossessing condition as to coolness.'

Though it was anything but a hot day, Mr Meagles was in a heated

state that attracted the attention of the passersby; more

particularly as he leaned his back against a railing, took off his

hat and cravat, and heartily rubbed his steaming head and face, and

his reddened ears and neck, without the least regard for public

opinion.

'Whew!' said Mr Meagles, dressing again. 'That's comfortable. Now

I am cooler.'

'You have been ruffled, Mr Meagles. What is the matter?'

'Wait a bit, and I'll tell you. Have you leisure for a turn in the

Park?'

'As much as you please.'

'Come along then. Ah! you may well look at him.' He happened to

have turned his eyes towards the offender whom Mr Meagles had so

angrily collared. 'He's something to look at, that fellow is.'

He was not much to look at, either in point of size or in point of

dress; being merely a short, square, practical looking man, whose

hair had turned grey, and in whose face and forehead there were

deep lines of cogitation, which looked as though they were carved

in hard wood. He was dressed in decent black, a little rusty, and

had the appearance of a sagacious master in some handicraft. He

had a spectacle-case in his hand, which he turned over and over

while he was thus in question, with a certain free use of the thumb

that is never seen but in a hand accustomed to tools.

'You keep with us,' said Mr Meagles, in a threatening kind of Way,

'and I'll introduce you presently. Now then!'

Clennam wondered within himself, as they took the nearest way to

the Park, what this unknown (who complied in the gentlest manner)

could have been doing. His appearance did not at all justify the

suspicion that he had been detected in designs on Mr Meagles's

pocket-handkerchief; nor had he any appearance of being quarrelsome

or violent. He was a quiet, plain, steady man; made no attempt to

escape; and seemed a little depressed, but neither ashamed nor

repentant. If he were a criminal offender, he must surely be an

incorrigible hypocrite; and if he were no offender, why should Mr

Meagles have collared him in the Circumlocution Office? He

perceived that the man was not a difficulty in his own mind alone,

but in Mr Meagles's too; for such conversation as they had together

on the short way to the Park was by no means well sustained, and Mr

Meagles's eye always wandered back to the man, even when he spoke

of something very different.

At length they being among the trees, Mr Meagles stopped short, and

said:

'Mr Clennam, will you do me the favour to look at this man? His

name is Doyce, Daniel Doyce. You wouldn't suppose this man to be

a notorious rascal; would you?'

'I certainly should not.' It was really a disconcerting question,

with the man there.

'No. You would not. I know you would not. You wouldn't suppose

him to be a public offender; would you?'

'No.'

'No. But he is. He is a public offender. What has he been guilty

of? Murder, manslaughter, arson, forgery, swindling, house-

breaking, highway robbery, larceny, conspiracy, fraud? Which

should you say, now?'

'I should say,' returned Arthur Clennam, observing a faint smile in

Daniel Doyce's face, 'not one of them.'

'You are right,' said Mr Meagles. 'But he has been ingenious, and

he has been trying to turn his ingenuity to his country's service.

That makes him a public offender directly, sir.'

Arthur looked at the man himself, who only shook his head.

'This Doyce,' said Mr Meagles, 'is a smith and engineer. He is not

in a large way, but he is well known as a very ingenious man. A

dozen years ago, he perfects an invention (involving a very curious

secret process) of great importance to his country and his fellow-

creatures. I won't say how much money it cost him, or how many

years of his life he had been about it, but he brought it to

perfection a dozen years ago. Wasn't it a dozen?' said Mr Meagles,

addressing Doyce. 'He is the most exasperating man in the world;

he never complains!'

'Yes. Rather better than twelve years ago.'

'Rather better?' said Mr Meagles, 'you mean rather worse. Well, Mr

Clennam, he addresses himself to the Government. The moment he

addresses himself to the Government, he becomes a public offender!

Sir,' said Mr Meagles, in danger of making himself excessively hot

again, 'he ceases to be an innocent citizen, and becomes a culprit.

He is treated from that instant as a man who has done some infernal

action. He is a man to be shirked, put off, brow-beaten, sneered

at, handed over by this highly-connected young or old gentleman, to

that highly-connected young or old gentleman, and dodged back

again; he is a man with no rights in his own time, or his own

property; a mere outlaw, whom it is justifiable to get rid of

anyhow; a man to be worn out by all possible means.'

It was not so difficult to believe, after the morning's experience,

as Mr Meagles supposed.

'Don't stand there, Doyce, turning your spectacle-case over and

over,' cried Mr Meagles, 'but tell Mr Clennam what you confessed to

me.'

'I undoubtedly was made to feel,' said the inventor, 'as if I had

committed an offence. In dancing attendance at the various

offices, I was always treated, more or less, as if it was a very

bad offence. I have frequently found it necessary to reflect, for

my own self-support, that I really had not done anything to bring

myself into the Newgate Calendar, but only wanted to effect a great

saving and a great improvement.'

'There!' said Mr Meagles. 'Judge whether I exaggerate. Now you'll

be able to believe me when I tell you the rest of the case.'

With this prelude, Mr Meagles went through the narrative; the

established narrative, which has become tiresome; the matter-of-

course narrative which we all know by heart. How, after

interminable attendance and correspondence, after infinite

impertinences, ignorances, and insults, my lords made a Minute,

number three thousand four hundred and seventy-two, allowing the

culprit to make certain trials of his invention at his own expense.

How the trials were made in the presence of a board of six, of whom

two ancient members were too blind to see it, two other ancient

members were too deaf to hear it, one other ancient member was too

lame to get near it, and the final ancient member was too pig-

headed to look at it. How there were more years; more

impertinences, ignorances, and insults. How my lords then made a

Minute, number five thousand one hundred and three, whereby they

resigned the business to the Circumlocution Office. How the

Circumlocution Office, in course of time, took up the business as

if it were a bran new thing of yesterday, which had never been

heard of before; muddled the business, addled the business, tossed

the business in a wet blanket. How the impertinences, ignorances,

and insults went through the multiplication table. How there was

a reference of the invention to three Barnacles and a

Stiltstalking, who knew nothing about it; into whose heads nothing

could be hammered about it; who got bored about it, and reported

physical impossibilities about it. How the Circumlocution Office,

in a Minute, number eight thousand seven hundred and forty, 'saw no

reason to reverse the decision at which my lords had arrived.' How

the Circumlocution Office, being reminded that my lords had arrived

at no decision, shelved the business. How there had been a final

interview with the head of the Circumlocution Office that very

morning, and how the Brazen Head had spoken, and had been, upon the

whole, and under all the circumstances, and looking at it from the

various points of view, of opinion that one of two courses was to

be pursued in respect of the business: that was to say, either to

leave it alone for evermore, or to begin it all over again.

'Upon which,' said Mr Meagles, 'as a practical man, I then and

there, in that presence, took Doyce by the collar, and told him it

was plain to me that he was an infamous rascal and treasonable

disturber of the government peace, and took him away. I brought

him out of the office door by the collar, that the very porter

might know I was a practical man who appreciated the official

estimate of such characters; and here we are!'

If that airy young Barnacle had been there, he would have frankly

told them perhaps that the Circumlocution Office had achieved its

function. That what the Barnacles had to do, was to stick on to

the national ship as long as they could. That to trim the ship,

lighten the ship, clean the ship, would be to knock them off; that

they could but be knocked off once; and that if the ship went down

with them yet sticking to it, that was the ship's look out, and not

theirs.

'There!' said Mr Meagles, 'now you know all about Doyce. Except,

which I own does not improve my state of mind, that even now you

don't hear him complain.'

'You must have great patience,' said Arthur Clennam, looking at him

with some wonder, 'great forbearance.'

'No,' he returned, 'I don't know that I have more than another

man.'

'By the Lord, you have more than I have, though!' cried Mr Meagles.

Doyce smiled, as he said to Clennam, 'You see, my experience of

these things does not begin with myself. It has been in my way to

know a little about them from time to time. Mine is not a

particular case. I am not worse used than a hundred others who

have put themselves in the same position--than all the others, I

was going to say.'

'I don't know that I should find that a consolation, if it were my

case; but I am very glad that you do.'

'Understand me! I don't say,' he replied in his steady, planning

way, and looking into the distance before him as if his grey eye

were measuring it, 'that it's recompense for a man's toil and hope;

but it's a certain sort of relief to know that I might have counted

on this.'

He spoke in that quiet deliberate manner, and in that undertone,

which is often observable in mechanics who consider and adjust with

great nicety. It belonged to him like his suppleness of thumb, or

his peculiar way of tilting up his hat at the back every now and

then, as if he were contemplating some half-finished work of his

hand and thinking about it.

'Disappointed?' he went on, as he walked between them under the

trees. 'Yes. No doubt I am disappointed. Hurt? Yes. No doubt

I am hurt. That's only natural. But what I mean when I say that

people who put themselves in the same position are mostly used in

the same way--'

'In England,' said Mr Meagles.

'Oh! of course I mean in England. When they take their inventions

into foreign countries, that's quite different. And that's the

reason why so many go there.'

Mr Meagles very hot indeed again.

'What I mean is, that however this comes to be the regular way of

our government, it is its regular way. Have you ever heard of any

projector or inventor who failed to find it all but inaccessible,

and whom it did not discourage and ill-treat?'

'I cannot say that I ever have.'

'Have you ever known it to be beforehand in the adoption of any

useful thing? Ever known it to set an example of any useful kind?'

'I am a good deal older than my friend here,' said Mr Meagles, 'and

I'll answer that. Never.'

'But we all three have known, I expect,' said the inventor, 'a

pretty many cases of its fixed determination to be miles upon

miles, and years upon years, behind the rest of us; and of its

being found out persisting in the use of things long superseded,

even after the better things were well known and generally taken

up?'

They all agreed upon that.

'Well then,' said Doyce, with a sigh, 'as I know what such a metal

will do at such a temperature, and such a body under such a

pressure, so I may know (if I will only consider), how these great

lords and gentlemen will certainly deal with such a matter as mine.

I have no right to be surprised, with a head upon my shoulders, and

memory in it, that I fall into the ranks with all who came before

me. I ought to have let it alone. I have had warning enough, I am

sure.'

With that he put up his spectacle-case, and said to Arthur, 'If I

don't complain, Mr Clennam, I can feel gratitude; and I assure you

that I feel it towards our mutual friend. Many's the day, and

many's the way in which he has backed me.'

'Stuff and nonsense,' said Mr Meagles.

Arthur could not but glance at Daniel Doyce in the ensuing silence.

Though it was evidently in the grain of his character, and of his

respect for his own case, that he should abstain from idle

murmuring, it was evident that he had grown the older, the sterner,

and the poorer, for his long endeavour. He could not but think

what a blessed thing it would have been for this man, if he had

taken a lesson from the gentlemen who were so kind as to take a

nation's affairs in charge, and had learnt How not to do it.

Mr Meagles was hot and despondent for about five minutes, and then

began to cool and clear up.

'Come, come!' said he. 'We shall not make this the better by being

grim. Where do you think of going, Dan?'

'I shall go back to the factory,' said Dan.

'Why then, we'll all go back to the factory, or walk in that

direction,' returned Mr Meagles cheerfully. 'Mr Clennam won't be

deterred by its being in Bleeding Heart Yard.'

'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Clennam. 'I want to go there.'

'So much the better,' cried Mr Meagles. 'Come along!'

As they went along, certainly one of the party, and probably more

than one, thought that Bleeding Heart Yard was no inappropriate

destination for a man who had been in official correspondence with

my lords and the Barnacles--and perhaps had a misgiving also that

Britannia herself might come to look for lodgings in Bleeding Heart

Yard some ugly day or other, if she over-did the Circumlocution

Office.

Read next: BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY#CHAPTER 11 Let Loose

Read previous: BOOK THE FIRST: POVERTY#CHAPTER 9 Little Mother

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