BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES - CHAPTER 28 An Appearance in the Marshalsea

The opinion of the community outside the prison gates bore hard on

Clennam as time went on, and he made no friends among the community

within. Too depressed to associate with the herd in the yard, who

got together to forget their cares; too retiring and too unhappy to

join in the poor socialities of the tavern; he kept his own room,

and was held in distrust. Some said he was proud; some objected

that he was sullen and reserved; some were contemptuous of him, for

that he was a poor-spirited dog who pined under his debts. The

whole population were shy of him on these various counts of

indictment, but especially the last, which involved a species of

domestic treason; and he soon became so confirmed in his seclusion,

that his only time for walking up and down was when the evening

Club were assembled at their songs and toasts and sentiments, and

when the yard was nearly left to the women and children.

Imprisonment began to tell upon him. He knew that he idled and

moped. After what he had known of the influences of imprisonment

within the four small walls of the very room he occupied, this

consciousness made him afraid of himself. Shrinking from the

observation of other men, and shrinking from his own, he began to

change very sensibly. Anybody might see that the shadow of the

wall was dark upon him.

One day when he might have been some ten or twelve weeks in jail,

and when he had been trying to read and had not been able to

release even the imaginary people of the book from the Marshalsea,

a footstep stopped at his door, and a hand tapped at it. He arose

and opened it, and an agreeable voice accosted him with 'How do you

do, Mr Clennam? I hope I am not unwelcome in calling to see you.'

It was the sprightly young Barnacle, Ferdinand. He looked very

good-natured and prepossessing, though overpoweringly gay and free,

in contrast with the squalid prison.

'You are surprised to see me, Mr Clennam,' he said, taking the seat

which Clennam offered him.

'I must confess to being much surprised.'

'Not disagreeably, I hope?'

'By no means.'

'Thank you. Frankly,' said the engaging young Barnacle, 'I have

been excessively sorry to hear that you were under the necessity of

a temporary retirement here, and I hope (of course as between two

private gentlemen) that our place has had nothing to do with it?'

'Your office?'

'Our Circumlocution place.'

'I cannot charge any part of my reverses upon that remarkable

establishment.'

Upon my life,' said the vivacious young Barnacle, 'I am heartily

glad to know it. It is quite a relief to me to hear you say it.

I should have so exceedingly regretted our place having had

anything to do with your difficulties.'

Clennam again assured him that he absolved it of the

responsibility.

'That's right,' said Ferdinand. 'I am very happy to hear it. I

was rather afraid in my own mind that we might have helped to floor

you, because there is no doubt that it is our misfortune to do that

kind of thing now and then. We don't want to do it; but if men

will be gravelled, why--we can't help it.'

'Without giving an unqualified assent to what you say,' returned

Arthur, gloomily, 'I am much obliged to you for your interest in

me.'

'No, but really! Our place is,' said the easy young Barnacle, 'the

most inoffensive place possible. You'll say we are a humbug. I

won't say we are not; but all that sort of thing is intended to be,

and must be. Don't you see?'

'I do not,' said Clennam.

'You don't regard it from the right point of view. It is the point

of view that is the essential thing. Regard our place from the

point of view that we only ask you to leave us alone, and we are as

capital a Department as you'll find anywhere.'

'Is your place there to be left alone?' asked Clennam.

'You exactly hit it,' returned Ferdinand. 'It is there with the

express intention that everything shall be left alone. That is

what it means. That is what it's for. No doubt there's a certain

form to be kept up that it's for something else, but it's only a

form. Why, good Heaven, we are nothing but forms! Think what a

lot of our forms you have gone through. And you have never got any

nearer to an end?'

'Never,' said Clennam.

'Look at it from the right point of view, and there you have us--

official and effectual. It's like a limited game of cricket. A

field of outsiders are always going in to bowl at the Public

Service, and we block the balls.'

Clennam asked what became of the bowlers? The airy young Barnacle

replied that they grew tired, got dead beat, got lamed, got their

backs broken, died off, gave it up, went in for other games.

'And this occasions me to congratulate myself again,' he pursued,

'on the circumstance that our place has had nothing to do with your

temporary retirement. It very easily might have had a hand in it;

because it is undeniable that we are sometimes a most unlucky

place, in our effects upon people who will not leave us alone. Mr

Clennam, I am quite unreserved with you. As between yourself and

myself, I know I may be. I was so, when I first saw you making the

mistake of not leaving us alone; because I perceived that you were

inexperienced and sanguine, and had--I hope you'll not object to my

saying--some simplicity.'

'Not at all.'

'Some simplicity. Therefore I felt what a pity it was, and I went

out of my way to hint to you (which really was not official, but I

never am official when I can help it) something to the effect that

if I were you, I wouldn't bother myself. However, you did bother

yourself, and you have since bothered yourself. Now, don't do it

any more.'

'I am not likely to have the opportunity,' said Clennam.

'Oh yes, you are! You'll leave here. Everybody leaves here.

There are no ends of ways of leaving here. Now, don't come back to

us. That entreaty is the second object of my call. Pray, don't

come back to us. Upon my honour,' said Ferdinand in a very

friendly and confiding way, 'I shall be greatly vexed if you don't

take warning by the past and keep away from us.'

'And the invention?' said Clennam.

'My good fellow,' returned Ferdinand, 'if you'll excuse the freedom

of that form of address, nobody wants to know of the invention, and

nobody cares twopence-halfpenny about it.'

'Nobody in the Office, that is to say?'

'Nor out of it. Everybody is ready to dislike and ridicule any

invention. You have no idea how many people want to be left alone.

You have no idea how the Genius of the country (overlook the

Parliamentary nature of the phrase, and don't be bored by it) tends

to being left alone. Believe me, Mr Clennam,' said the sprightly

young Barnacle in his pleasantest manner, 'our place is not a

wicked Giant to be charged at full tilt; but only a windmill

showing you, as it grinds immense quantities of chaff, which way

the country wind blows.'

'If I could believe that,' said Clennam, 'it would be a dismal

prospect for all of us.'

'Oh! Don't say so!' returned Ferdinand. 'It's all right. We must

have humbug, we all like humbug, we couldn't get on without humbug.

A little humbug, and a groove, and everything goes on admirably, if

you leave it alone.'

With this hopeful confession of his faith as the head of the rising

Barnacles who were born of woman, to be followed under a variety of

watchwords which they utterly repudiated and disbelieved, Ferdinand

rose. Nothing could be more agreeable than his frank and courteous

bearing, or adapted with a more gentlemanly instinct to the

circumstances of his visit.

'Is it fair to ask,' he said, as Clennam gave him his hand with a

real feeling of thankfulness for his candour and good-humour,

'whether it is true that our late lamented Merdle is the cause of

this passing inconvenience?'

'I am one of the many he has ruined. Yes.'

'He must have been an exceedingly clever fellow,' said Ferdinand

Barnacle.

Arthur, not being in the mood to extol the memory of the deceased,

was silent.

'A consummate rascal, of course,' said Ferdinand, 'but remarkably

clever! One cannot help admiring the fellow. Must have been such

a master of humbug. Knew people so well--got over them so

completely--did so much with them!' In his easy way, he was really

moved to genuine admiration.

'I hope,' said Arthur, 'that he and his dupes may be a warning to

people not to have so much done with them again.'

'My dear Mr Clennam,' returned Ferdinand, laughing, 'have you

really such a verdant hope? The next man who has as large a

capacity and as genuine a taste for swindling, will succeed as

well. Pardon me, but I think you really have no idea how the human

bees will swarm to the beating of any old tin kettle; in that fact

lies the complete manual of governing them. When they can be got

to believe that the kettle is made of the precious metals, in that

fact lies the whole power of men like our late lamented. No doubt

there are here and there,' said Ferdinand politely, 'exceptional

cases, where people have been taken in for what appeared to them to

be much better reasons; and I need not go far to find such a case;

but they don't invalidate the rule. Good day! I hope that when I

have the pleasure of seeing you, next, this passing cloud will have

given place to sunshine. Don't come a step beyond the door. I

know the way out perfectly. Good day!'

With those words, the best and brightest of the Barnacles went

down-stairs, hummed his way through the Lodge, mounted his horse in

the front court-yard, and rode off to keep an appointment with his

noble kinsman, who wanted a little coaching before he could

triumphantly answer certain infidel Snobs who were going to

question the Nobs about their statesmanship.

He must have passed Mr Rugg on his way out, for, a minute or two

afterwards, that ruddy-headed gentleman shone in at the door, like

an elderly Phoebus.

'How do you do to-day, sir?' said Mr Rugg. 'Is there any little

thing I can do for you to-day, sir?'

'No, I thank you.'

Mr Rugg's enjoyment of embarrassed affairs was like a housekeeper's

enjoyment in pickling and preserving, or a washerwoman's enjoyment

of a heavy wash, or a dustman's enjoyment of an overflowing dust-

bin, or any other professional enjoyment of a mess in the way of

business.

'I still look round, from time to time, sir,' said Mr Rugg,

cheerfully, 'to see whether any lingering Detainers are

accumulating at the gate. They have fallen in pretty thick, sir;

as thick as we could have expected.'

He remarked upon the circumstance as if it were matter of

congratulation: rubbing his hands briskly, and rolling his head a

little.

'As thick,' repeated Mr Rugg, 'as we could reasonably have

expected. Quite a shower-bath of 'em. I don't often intrude upon

you now, when I look round, because I know you are not inclined for

company, and that if you wished to see me, you would leave word in

the Lodge. But I am here pretty well every day, sir. Would this

be an unseasonable time, sir,' asked Mr Rugg, coaxingly, 'for me to

offer an observation?'

'As seasonable a time as any other.'

'Hum! Public opinion, sir,' said Mr Rugg, 'has been busy with

you.'

'I don't doubt it.'

'Might it not be advisable, sir,' said Mr Rugg, more coaxingly yet,

'now to make, at last and after all, a trifling concession to

public opinion? We all do it in one way or another. The fact is,

we must do it.'

'I cannot set myself right with it, Mr Rugg, and have no business

to expect that I ever shall.'

'Don't say that, sir, don't say that. The cost of being moved to

the Bench is almost insignificant, and if the general feeling is

strong that you ought to be there, why--really--'

'I thought you had settled, Mr Rugg,' said Arthur, 'that my

determination to remain here was a matter of taste.'

'Well, sir, well! But is it good taste, is it good taste? That's

the Question.' Mr Rugg was so soothingly persuasive as to be quite

pathetic. 'I was almost going to say, is it good feeling? This is

an extensive affair of yours; and your remaining here where a man

can come for a pound or two, is remarked upon as not in keeping.

It is not in keeping. I can't tell you, sir, in how many quarters

I heard it mentioned. I heard comments made upon it last night in

a Parlour frequented by what I should call, if I did not look in

there now and then myself, the best legal company--I heard, there,

comments on it that I was sorry to hear. They hurt me on your

account. Again, only this morning at breakfast. My daughter (but

a woman, you'll say: yet still with a feeling for these things, and

even with some little personal experience, as the plaintiff in Rugg

and Bawkins) was expressing her great surprise; her great surprise.

Now under these circumstances, and considering that none of us can

quite set ourselves above public opinion, wouldn't a trifling

concession to that opinion be-- Come, sir,' said Rugg, 'I will put

it on the lowest ground of argument, and say, amiable?'

Arthur's thoughts had once more wandered away to Little Dorrit, and

the question remained unanswered.

'As to myself, sir,' said Mr Rugg, hoping that his eloquence had

reduced him to a state of indecision, 'it is a principle of mine

not to consider myself when a client's inclinations are in the

scale. But, knowing your considerate character and general wish to

oblige, I will repeat that I should prefer your being in the Bench.

Your case has made a noise; it is a creditable case to be

professionally concerned in; I should feel on a better standing

with my connection, if you went to the Bench. Don't let that

influence you, sir. I merely state the fact.'

So errant had the prisoner's attention already grown in solitude

and dejection, and so accustomed had it become to commune with only

one silent figure within the ever-frowning walls, that Clennam had

to shake off a kind of stupor before he could look at Mr Rugg,

recall the thread of his talk, and hurriedly say, 'I am unchanged,

and unchangeable, in my decision. Pray, let it be; let it be!' Mr

Rugg, without concealing that he was nettled and mortified,

replied:

'Oh! Beyond a doubt, sir. I have travelled out of the record,

sir, I am aware, in putting the point to you. But really, when I

herd it remarked in several companies, and in very good company,

that however worthy of a foreigner, it is not worthy of the spirit

of an Englishman to remain in the Marshalsea when the glorious

liberties of his island home admit of his removal to the Bench, I

thought I would depart from the narrow professional line marked out

to me, and mention it. Personally,' said Mr Rugg, 'I have no

opinion on the topic.'

'That's well,' returned Arthur.

'Oh! None at all, sir!' said Mr Rugg. 'If I had, I should have

been

unwilling, some minutes ago, to see a client of mine visited in

this place by a gentleman of a high family riding a saddle-horse.

But it was not my business. If I had, I might have wished to be

now empowered to mention to another gentleman, a gentleman of

military

exterior at present waiting in the Lodge, that my client had never

intended to remain here, and was on the eve of removal to a

superior abode. But my course as a professional machine is clear;

I have nothing to do with it. Is it your good pleasure to see the

gentleman, sir?'

'Who is waiting to see me, did you say?'

'I did take that unprofessional liberty, sir. Hearing that I was

your professional adviser, he declined to interpose before my very

limited function was performed. Happily,' said Mr Rugg, with

sarcasm, 'I did not so far travel out of the record as to ask the

gentleman for his name.'

'I suppose I have no resource but to see him,' sighed Clennam,

wearily.

'Then it IS your good pleasure, sir?' retorted Rugg. 'Am I

honoured by your instructions to mention as much to the gentleman,

as I pass out? I am? Thank you, sir. I take my leave.' His

leave he took accordingly, in dudgeon.

The gentleman of military exterior had so imperfectly awakened

Clennam's curiosity, in the existing state of his mind, that a

half-forgetfulness of such a visitor's having been referred to, was

already creeping over it as a part of the sombre veil which almost

always dimmed it now, when a heavy footstep on the stairs aroused

him. It appeared to ascend them, not very promptly or

spontaneously, yet with a display of stride and clatter meant to be

insulting. As it paused for a moment on the landing outside his

door, he could not recall his association with the peculiarity of

its sound, though he thought he had one. Only a moment was given

him for consideration. His door was immediately swung open by a

thump, and in the doorway stood the missing Blandois, the cause of

many anxieties.

'Salve, fellow jail-bird !' said he. 'You want me, it seems. Here

I am!'

Before Arthur could speak to him in his indignant wonder,

Cavalletto followed him into the room. Mr Pancks followed

Cavalletto. Neither of the two had been there since its present

occupant had had possession of it. Mr Pancks, breathing hard,

sidled near the window, put his hat on the ground, stirred his hair

up with both hands, and folded his arms, like a man who had come to

a pause in a hard day's work. Mr Baptist, never taking his eyes

from his dreaded chum of old, softly sat down on the floor with his

back against the door and one of his ankles in each hand: resuming

the attitude (except that it was now expressive of unwinking

watchfulness) in which he had sat before the same man in the deeper

shade of another prison, one hot morning at Marseilles.

'I have it on the witnessing of these two madmen,' said Monsieur

Blandois, otherwise Lagnier, otherwise Rigaud, 'that you want me,

brother-bird. Here I am!'

Glancing round contemptuously at the bedstead, which was turned up

by day, he leaned his back against it as a resting-place, without

removing his hat from his head, and stood defiantly lounging with

his hands in his pockets.

'You villain of ill-omen!' said Arthur. 'You have purposely cast

a dreadful suspicion upon my mother's house. Why have you done it?

What prompted you to the devilish invention?'

Monsieur Rigaud, after frowning at him for a moment, laughed.

'Hear this noble gentleman! Listen, all the world, to this

creature of Virtue! But take care, take care. It is possible, my

friend, that your ardour is a little compromising. Holy Blue! It

is possible.'

'Signore!' interposed Cavalletto, also addressing Arthur: 'for to

commence, hear me! I received your instructions to find him,

Rigaud; is it not?'

'It is the truth.'

'I go, consequentementally,'--it would have given Mrs Plornish

great concern if she could have been persuaded that his occasional

lengthening of an adverb in this way, was the chief fault of his

English,--'first among my countrymen. I ask them what news in

Londra, of foreigners arrived. Then I go among the French. Then

I go among the Germans. They all tell me. The great part of us

know well the other, and they all tell me. But!--no person can

tell me nothing of him, Rigaud. Fifteen times,' said Cavalletto,

thrice throwing out his left hand with all its fingers spread, and

doing it so rapidly that the sense of sight could hardly follow the

action, 'I ask of him in every place where go the foreigners; and

fifteen times,' repeating the same swift performance, 'they know

nothing. But!--' At this significant Italian rest on the word

'But,' his backhanded shake of his right forefinger came into play;

a very little, and very cautiously.

'But!--After a long time when I have not been able to find that he

is here in Londra, some one tells me of a soldier with white hair--

hey?--not hair like this that he carries--white--who lives retired

secrettementally, in a certain place. But!--' with another rest

upon the word, 'who sometimes in the after-dinner, walks, and

smokes. It is necessary, as they say in Italy (and as they know,

poor people), to have patience. I have patience. I ask where is

this certain place. One. believes it is here, one believes it is

there. Eh well! It is not here, it is not there. I wait

patientissamentally. At last I find it. Then I watch; then I

hide, until he walks and smokes. He is a soldier with grey hair--

But!--' a very decided rest indeed, and a very vigorous play from

side to side of the back-handed forefinger--'he is also this man

that you see.'

It was noticeable, that, in his old habit of submission to one who

had been at the trouble of asserting superiority over him, he even

then bestowed upon Rigaud a confused bend of his head, after thus

pointing him out.

'Eh well, Signore!' he cried in conclusion, addressing Arthur

again. 'I waited for a good opportunity. I writed some words to

Signor Panco,' an air of novelty came over Mr Pancks with this

designation, 'to come and help. I showed him, Rigaud, at his

window, to Signor Panco, who was often the spy in the day. I slept

at night near the door of the house. At last we entered, only this

to-day, and now you see him! As he would not come up in presence

of the illustrious Advocate,' such was Mr Baptist's honourable

mention of Mr Rugg, 'we waited down below there, together, and

Signor Panco guarded the street.'

At the close of this recital, Arthur turned his eyes upon the

impudent and wicked face. As it met his, the nose came down over

the moustache and the moustache went up under the nose. When nose

and moustache had settled into their places again, Monsieur Rigaud

loudly snapped his fingers half-a-dozen times; bending forward to

jerk the snaps at Arthur, as if they were palpable missiles which

he jerked into his face.

'Now, Philosopher!' said Rigaud.'What do you want with me?'

'I want to know,' returned Arthur, without disguising his

abhorrence, 'how you dare direct a suspicion of murder against my

mother's house?'

'Dare!' cried Rigaud. 'Ho, ho! Hear him! Dare? Is it dare? By

Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little imprudent!'

'I want that suspicion to be cleared away,' said Arthur. 'You

shall be taken there, and be publicly seen. I want to know,

moreover, what business you had there when I had a burning desire

to fling you down-stairs. Don't frown at me, man! I have seen

enough of you to know that you are a bully and coward. I need no

revival of my spirits from the effects of this wretched place to

tell you so plain a fact, and one that you know so well.'

White to the lips, Rigaud stroked his moustache, muttering, 'By

Heaven, my small boy, but you are a little compromising of my lady,

your respectable mother'--and seemed for a minute undecided how to

act. His indecision was soon gone. He sat himself down with a

threatening swagger, and said:

'Give me a bottle of wine. You can buy wine here. Send one of

your madmen to get me a bottle of wine. I won't talk to you

without wine. Come! Yes or no?'

'Fetch him what he wants, Cavalletto,' said Arthur, scornfully,

producing the money.

'Contraband beast,' added Rigaud, 'bring Port wine! I'll drink

nothing but Porto-Porto.'

The contraband beast, however, assuring all present, with his

significant finger, that he peremptorily declined to leave his post

at the door, Signor Panco offered his services. He soon returned

with the bottle of wine: which, according to the custom of the

place, originating in a scarcity of corkscrews among the Collegians

(in common with a scarcity of much else), was already opened for

use.

'Madman! A large glass,' said Rigaud.

Signor Panco put a tumbler before him; not without a visible

conflict of feeling on the question of throwing it at his head.

'Haha!' boasted Rigaud. 'Once a gentleman, and always a gentleman.

A gentleman from the beginning, and a gentleman to the end. What

the Devil! A gentleman must be waited on, I hope? It's a part of

my character to be waited on!'

He half filled the tumbler as he said it, and drank off the

contents when he had done saying it.

'Hah!' smacking his lips. 'Not a very old prisoner that! I judge

by your looks, brave sir, that imprisonment will subdue your blood

much sooner than it softens this hot wine. You are mellowing--

losing body and colour already. I salute you!'

He tossed off another half glass: holding it up both before and

afterwards, so as to display his small, white hand.

'To business,' he then continued. 'To conversation. You have

shown yourself more free of speech than body, sir.'

'I have used the freedom of telling you what you know yourself to

be. You know yourself, as we all know you, to be far worse than

that.'

'Add, always a gentleman, and it's no matter. Except in that

regard, we are all alike. For example: you couldn't for your life

be a gentleman; I couldn't for my life be otherwise. How great the

difference! Let us go on. Words, sir, never influence the course

of the cards, or the course of the dice. Do you know that? You

do? I also play a game, and words are without power over it.'

Now that he was confronted with Cavalletto, and knew that his story

was known--whatever thin disguise he had worn, he dropped; and

faced it out, with a bare face, as the infamous wretch he was.

'No, my son,' he resumed, with a snap of his fingers. 'I play my

game to the end in spite of words; and Death of my Body and Death

of my Soul! I'll win it. You want to know why I played this

little trick that you have interrupted? Know then that I had, and

that I have--do you understand me? have--a commodity to sell to my

lady your respectable mother. I described my precious commodity,

and fixed my price. Touching the bargain, your admirable mother

was a little too calm, too stolid, too immovable and statue-like.

In fine, your admirable mother vexed me. To make variety in my

position, and to amuse myself--what! a gentleman must be amused at

somebody's expense!--I conceived the happy idea of disappearing.

An idea, see you, that your characteristic mother and my Flintwinch

would have been well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah, bah,

bah, don't look as from high to low at me! I repeat it. Well

enough pleased, excessively enchanted, and with all their hearts

ravished. How strongly will you have it?'

He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they

nearly spattered Cavalletto. This seemed to draw his attention to

him anew. He set down his glass and said:

'I'll not fill it. What! I am born to be served. Come then, you

Cavalletto, and fill!'

The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with

Rigaud, and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and

poured out from the bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did

so, of his old submission with a sense of something humorous; the

striving of that with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might

have flashed fire in an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to

think, for he had a wary eye upon him); and the easy yielding of

all to a good-natured, careless, predominant propensity to sit down

on the ground again: formed a very remarkable combination of

character.

'This happy idea, brave sir,' Rigaud resumed after drinking, 'was

a happy idea for several reasons. It amused me, it worried your

dear mama and my Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a

lesson in politeness towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all

the amiable persons interested that your entirely devoted is a man

to fear. By Heaven, he is a man to fear! Beyond this; it might

have restored her wit to my lady your mother--might, under the

pressing little suspicion your wisdom has recognised, have

persuaded her at last to announce, covertly, in the journals, that

the difficulties of a certain contract would be removed by the

appearance of a certain important party to it. Perhaps yes,

perhaps no. But that, you have interrupted. Now, what is it you

say? What is it you want?'

Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in

bonds, than when he saw this man before him, and could not

accompany him to his mother's house. All the undiscernible

difficulties and dangers he had ever feared were closing in, when

he could not stir hand or foot.

'Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of virtue, Imbecile, what you

will; perhaps,' said Rigaud, pausing in his drink to look out of

his glass with his horrible smile, 'you would have done better to

leave me alone?'

'No! At least,' said Clennam, 'you are known to be alive and

unharmed. At least you cannot escape from these two witnesses; and

they can produce you before any public authorities, or before

hundreds of people!'

'But will not produce me before one,' said Rigaud, snapping his

fingers again with an air of triumphant menace. 'To the Devil with

your witnesses! To the Devil with your produced! To the Devil

with yourself! What! Do I know what I know, for that? Have I my

commodity on sale, for that? Bah, poor debtor! You have

interrupted my little project. Let it pass. How then? What

remains? To you, nothing; to me, all. Produce me! Is that what

you want? I will produce myself, only too quickly. Contrabandist!

Give me pen, ink, and paper.'

Cavalletto got up again as before, and laid them before him in his

former manner. Rigaud, after some villainous thinking and smiling,

wrote, and read aloud, as follows:

'To MRS CLENNAM.

'Wait answer.

'Prison of the Marshalsea.

'At the apartment of your son.

'Dear Madam,--I am in despair to be informed to-day by our prisoner

here (who has had the goodness to employ spies to seek me, living

for politic reasons in retirement), that you have had fears for my

safety.

'Reassure yourself, dear madam. I am well, I am strong and

constant.

'With the greatest impatience I should fly to your house, but that

I foresee it to be possible, under the circumstances, that you will

not yet have quite definitively arranged the little proposition I

have had the honour to submit to you. I name one week from this

day, for a last final visit on my part; when you will

unconditionally accept it or reject it, with its train of

consequences.

'I suppress my ardour to embrace you and achieve this interesting

business, in order that you may have leisure to adjust its details

to our perfect mutual satisfaction.

'In the meanwhile, it is not too much to propose (our prisoner

having deranged my housekeeping), that my expenses of lodging and

nourishment at an hotel shall be paid by you.

'Receive, dear madam, the assurance of my highest and most

distinguished consideration,

'RIGAUD BLANDOIS.

'A thousand friendships to that dear Flintwinch.

'I kiss the hands of Madame F.'

When he had finished this epistle, Rigaud folded it and tossed it

with a flourish at Clennam's feet. 'Hola you! Apropos of

producing, let somebody produce that at its address, and produce

the answer here.'

'Cavalletto,' said Arthur. 'Will you take this fellow's letter?'

But, Cavalletto's significant finger again expressing that his post

was at the door to keep watch over Rigaud, now he had found him

with so much trouble, and that the duty of his post was to sit on

the floor backed up by the door, looking at Rigaud and holding his

own ankles,--Signor Panco once more volunteered. His services

being accepted, Cavalletto suffered the door to open barely wide

enough to admit of his squeezing himself out, and immediately shut

it on him.

'Touch me with a finger, touch me with an epithet, question my

superiority as I sit here drinking my wine at my pleasure,' said

Rigaud, 'and I follow the letter and cancel my week's grace. You

wanted me? You have got me! How do you like me?'

'You know,' returned Clennam, with a bitter sense of his

helplessness, 'that when I sought you, I was not a prisoner.'

'To the Devil with you and your prison,' retorted Rigaud,

leisurely, as he took from his pocket a case containing the

materials for making cigarettes, and employed his facile hands in

folding a few for present use; 'I care for neither of you.

Contrabandist! A light.'

Again Cavalletto got up, and gave him what he wanted. There had

been something dreadful in the noiseless skill of his cold, white

hands, with the fingers lithely twisting about and twining one over

another like serpents. Clennam could not prevent himself from

shuddering inwardly, as if he had been looking on at a nest of

those creatures.

'Hola, Pig!' cried Rigaud, with a noisy stimulating cry, as if

Cavalletto were an Italian horse or mule. 'What! The infernal old

jail was a respectable one to this. There was dignity in the bars

and stones of that place. It was a prison for men. But this?

Bah! A hospital for imbeciles!'

He smoked his cigarette out, with his ugly smile so fixed upon his

face that he looked as though he were smoking with his drooping

beak of a nose, rather than with his mouth; like a fancy in a weird

picture. When he had lighted a second cigarette at the still

burning end of the first, he said to Clennam:

'One must pass the time in the madman's absence. One must talk.

One can't drink strong wine all day long, or I would have another

bottle. She's handsome, sir. Though not exactly to my taste,

still, by the Thunder and the Lightning! handsome. I felicitate

you on your admiration.'

'I neither know nor ask,' said Clennam, 'of whom you speak.'

'Della bella Gowana, sir, as they say in Italy. Of the Gowan, the

fair Gowan.'

'Of whose husband you were the--follower, I think?'

'Sir? Follower? You are insolent. The friend.'

'Do you sell all your friends?'

Rigaud took his cigarette from his mouth, and eyed him with a

momentary revelation of surprise. But he put it between his lips

again, as he answered with coolness:

'I sell anything that commands a price. How do your lawyers live,

your politicians, your intriguers, your men of the Exchange? How

do you live? How do you come here? Have you sold no friend? Lady

of mine! I rather think, yes!'

Clennam turned away from him towards the window, and sat looking

out at the wall.

'Effectively, sir,' said Rigaud, 'Society sells itself and sells

me: and I sell Society. I perceive you have acquaintance with

another lady. Also handsome. A strong spirit. Let us see. How

do they call her? Wade.'

He received no answer, but could easily discern that he had hit the

mark.

'Yes,' he went on, 'that handsome lady and strong spirit addresses

me in the street, and I am not insensible. I respond. That

handsome lady and strong spirit does me the favour to remark, in

full confidence, "I have my curiosity, and I have my chagrins. You

are not more than ordinarily honourable, perhaps?" I announce

myself, "Madame, a gentleman from the birth, and a gentleman to the

death; but NOT more than ordinarily honourable. I despise such a

weak fantasy." Thereupon she is pleased to compliment. "The

difference between you and the rest is," she answers, "that you say

so." For she knows Society. I accept her congratulations with

gallantry and politeness. Politeness and little gallantries are

inseparable from my character. She then makes a proposition, which

is, in effect, that she has seen us much together; that it appears

to her that I am for the passing time the cat of the house, the

friend of the family; that her curiosity and her chagrins awaken

the fancy to be acquainted with their movements, to know the manner

of their life, how the fair Gowana is beloved, how the fair Gowana

is cherished, and so on. She is not rich, but offers such and such

little recompenses for the little cares and derangements of such

services; and I graciously--to do everything graciously is a part

of my character--consent to accept them. O yes! So goes the

world. It is the mode.'

Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to

the end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that

were too near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very

carriage of the head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness

from clause to clause of what he said, that he was saying nothing

which Clennam did not already know.

'Whoof! The fair Gowana!' he said, lighting a third cigarette with

a sound as if his lightest breath could blow her away. 'Charming,

but imprudent! For it was not well of the fair Gowana to make

mysteries of letters from old lovers, in her bedchamber on the

mountain, that her husband might not see them. No, no. That was

not well. Whoof! The Gowana was mistaken there.'

'I earnestly hope,' cried Arthur aloud, 'that Pancks may not be

long gone, for this man's presence pollutes the room.'

'Ah! But he'll flourish here, and everywhere,' said Rigaud, with

an exulting look and snap of his fingers. 'He always has; he

always will!' Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in

the room besides that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting

himself on the breast as the gallant personage of the song.

'Who passes by this road so late?

Compagnon de la Majolaine!

Who passes by this road so late?

Always gay!

'Sing the Refrain, pig! You could sing it once, in another jail.

Sing it! Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I'll be

affronted and compromising; and then some people who are not dead

yet, had better have been stoned along with them!'

'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,

Compagnon de la Majolaine!

Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,

Always gay!'

Partly in his old habit of submission, partly because his not doing

it might injure his benefactor, and partly because he would as soon

do it as anything else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time.

Rigaud laughed, and fell to smoking with his eyes shut.

Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks's step

was heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam

insupportably long. His step was attended by another step; and

when Cavalletto opened the door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr

Flintwinch. The latter was no sooner visible, than Rigaud rushed

at him and embraced him boisterously.

'How do you find yourself, sir?' said Mr Flintwinch, as soon as he

could disengage himself, which he struggled to do with very little

ceremony. 'Thank you, no; I don't want any more.' This was in

reference to another menace of attention from his recovered friend.

'Well, Arthur. You remember what I said to you about sleeping dogs

and missing ones. It's come true, you see.'

He was as imperturbable as ever, to all appearance, and nodded his

head in a moralising way as he looked round the room.

'And this is the Marshalsea prison for debt!' said Mr Flintwinch.

'Hah! you have brought your pigs to a very indifferent market,

Arthur.'

If Arthur had patience, Rigaud had not. He took his little

Flintwinch, with fierce playfulness, by the two lapels of his coat,

and cried:

'To the Devil with the Market, to the Devil with the Pigs, and to

the Devil with the Pig-Driver! Now! Give me the answer to my

letter.'

'If you can make it convenient to let go a moment, sir,' returned

Mr Flintwinch, 'I'll first hand Mr Arthur a little note that I have

for him.'

He did so. It was in his mother's maimed writing, on a slip of

paper, and contained only these words:

'I hope it is enough that you have ruined yourself. Rest contented

without more ruin. Jeremiah Flintwinch is my messenger and

representative. Your affectionate M. C.'

Clennam read this twice, in silence, and then tore it to pieces.

Rigaud in the meanwhile stepped into a chair, and sat himself on

the back with his feet upon the seat.

'Now, Beau Flintwinch,' he said, when he had closely watched the

note to its destruction, 'the answer to my letter?'

'Mrs Clennam did not write, Mr Blandois, her hands being cramped,

and she thinking it as well to send it verbally by me.' Mr

Flintwinch screwed this out of himself, unwillingly and rustily.

'She sends her compliments, and says she doesn't on the whole wish

to term you unreasonable, and that she agrees. But without

prejudicing the appointment that stands for this day week.'

Monsieur Rigaud, after indulging in a fit of laughter, descended

from his throne, saying, 'Good! I go to seek an hotel!' But,

there his eyes encountered Cavalletto, who was still at his post.

'Come, Pig,' he added, 'I have had you for a follower against my

will; now, I'll have you against yours. I tell you, my little

reptiles, I am born to be served. I demand the service of this

contrabandist as my domestic until this day week.'

In answer to Cavalletto's look of inquiry, Clennam made him a sign

to go; but he added aloud, 'unless you are afraid of him.'

Cavalletto replied with a very emphatic finger-negative.'No,

master, I am not afraid of him, when I no more keep it

secrettementally that he was once my comrade.' Rigaud took no

notice of either remark until he had lighted his last cigarette and

was quite ready for walking.

'Afraid of him,' he said then, looking round upon them all.

'Whoof! My children, my babies, my little dolls, you are all

afraid of him. You give him his bottle of wine here; you give him

meat, drink, and lodging there; you dare not touch him with a

finger or an epithet. No. It is his character to triumph! Whoof!

'Of all the king's knights he's the flower,

And he's always gay!'

With this adaptation of the Refrain to himself, he stalked out of

the room closely followed by Cavalletto, whom perhaps he had

pressed into his service because he tolerably well knew it would

not be easy to get rid of him. Mr Flintwinch, after scraping his

chin, and looking about with caustic disparagement of the Pig-

Market, nodded to Arthur, and followed. Mr Pancks, still penitent

and depressed, followed too; after receiving with great attention

a secret word or two of instructions from Arthur, and whispering

back that he would see this affair out, and stand by it to the end.

The prisoner, with the feeling that he was more despised, more

scorned and repudiated, more helpless, altogether more miserable

and fallen than before, was left alone again.

Read next: BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES#CHAPTER 29 A Plea in the Marshalsea

Read previous: BOOK THE SECOND: RICHES#CHAPTER 27 The Pupil of the Marshalsea

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