The dignified old gentleman turned out to be Lord Lancaster

Stiltstalking, who had been maintained by the Circumlocution Office for

many years as a representative of the Britannic Majesty abroad.

This noble Refrigerator had iced several European courts in his time,

and had done it with such complete success that the very name of

Englishman yet struck cold to the stomachs of foreigners who had the

distinguished honour of remembering him at a distance of a quarter of a

century. He was now in retirement, and hence (in a ponderous white cravat, like

a stiff snow-drift) was so obliging as to shade the dinner. There was a

whisper of the pervading Bohemian character in the nomadic nature of

the service and its curious races of plates and dishes; but the noble

Refrigerator, infinitely better than plate or porcelain, made it superb.

He shaded the dinner, cooled the wines, chilled the gravy, and blighted

the vegetables.

There was only one other person in the room: a microscopically small

footboy, who waited on the malevolent man who hadn't got into the

Post-Office. Even this youth, if his jacket could have been unbuttoned

and his heart laid bare, would have been seen, as a distant adherent of

the Barnacle family, already to aspire to a situation under Government.

Mrs Gowan with a gentle melancholy upon her, occasioned by her son's

being reduced to court the swinish public as a follower of the low Arts,

instead of asserting his birthright and putting a ring through its nose

as an acknowledged Barnacle, headed the conversation at dinner on the

evil days. It was then that Clennam learned for the first time what

little pivots this great world goes round upon.

'If John Barnacle,' said Mrs Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times

had been fully ascertained, 'if John Barnacle had but abandoned his most

unfortunate idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and

I think the country would have been preserved.' The old lady with the

high nose assented; but added that if Augustus Stiltstalking had in a

general way ordered the cavalry out with instructions to charge, she

thought the country would have been preserved.

The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and

Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed

their ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers,

and rendered it penal for any Editor-person to presume to discuss the

conduct of any appointed authority abroad or at home, he thought the

country would have been preserved.

It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and

Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving

was not so clear. It was only clear that the question was all about

John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor

Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because

there was nobody else but mob. And this was the feature of the

conversation which impressed Clennam, as a man not used to it, very

disagreeably: making him doubt if it were quite right to sit there,

silently hearing a great nation narrowed to such little bounds.

Remembering, however, that in the Parliamentary debates, whether on the

life of that nation's body or the life of its soul, the question was

usually all about and between John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking,

William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle

or Stiltstalking, and nobody else; he said nothing on the part of mob,

bethinking himself that mob was used to it.




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