The Patriarch insisted on his staying to dinner, and Flora signalled

'Yes!' Clennam so wished he could have done more than stay to dinner--so

heartily wished he could have found the Flora that had been, or that

never had been--that he thought the least atonement he could make for

the disappointment he almost felt ashamed of, was to give himself up to

the family desire. Therefore, he stayed to dinner.

Pancks dined with them. Pancks steamed out of his little dock at a

quarter before six, and bore straight down for the Patriarch, who

happened to be then driving, in an inane manner, through a stagnant

account of Bleeding Heart Yard. Pancks instantly made fast to him and

hauled him out. 'Bleeding Heart Yard?' said Pancks, with a puff and a snort. 'It's a

troublesome property. Don't pay you badly, but rents are very hard to

get there. You have more trouble with that one place than with all the

places belonging to you.' Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of

being the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said

himself whatever Pancks said for him.

'Indeed?' returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently

made by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead

of the Tug. 'The people are so poor there?'

'You can't say, you know,' snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands

out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find

any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, 'whether they're

poor or not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says

he's rich, you're generally sure he isn't. Besides, if they ARE poor,

you can't help it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents.'

'True enough,' said Arthur. 'You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,'

pursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not

going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if you know it,

you ain't.' Mr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality.

'If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week

comes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you

got the room, then? If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got

the other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean

by it? What are you up to? That's what YOU say to a man of that sort;

and if you didn't say it, more shame for you!' Mr Pancks here made a

singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the

region of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024