It was at this time that Mr Pancks, in discharge of his compact with

Clennam, revealed to him the whole of his gipsy story, and told him

Little Dorrit's fortune. Her father was heir-at-law to a great estate

that had long lain unknown of, unclaimed, and accumulating. His right

was now clear, nothing interposed in his way, the Marshalsea gates stood

open, the Marshalsea walls were down, a few flourishes of his pen, and

he was extremely rich.

In his tracking out of the claim to its complete establishment, Mr

Pancks had shown a sagacity that nothing could baffle, and a patience

and secrecy that nothing could tire. 'I little thought, sir,' said

Pancks, 'when you and I crossed Smithfield that night, and I told you

what sort of a Collector I was, that this would come of it. I little

thought, sir, when I told you you were not of the Clennams of

Cornwall, that I was ever going to tell you who were of the Dorrits of

Dorsetshire.'

He then went on to detail. How, having that name recorded

in his note-book, he was first attracted by the name alone. How, having

often found two exactly similar names, even belonging to the same place,

to involve no traceable consanguinity, near or distant, he did not at

first give much heed to this, except in the way of speculation as to

what a surprising change would be made in the condition of a little

seamstress, if she could be shown to have any interest in so large a

property. How he rather supposed himself to have pursued the idea into

its next degree, because there was something uncommon in the quiet

little seamstress, which pleased him and provoked his curiosity.

How he had felt his way inch by inch, and 'Moled it out, sir' (that was

Mr Pancks's expression), grain by grain. How, in the beginning of

the labour described by this new verb, and to render which the more

expressive Mr Pancks shut his eyes in pronouncing it and shook his hair

over them, he had alternated from sudden lights and hopes to sudden

darkness and no hopes, and back again, and back again. How he had made

acquaintances in the Prison, expressly that he might come and go there

as all other comers and goers did; and how his first ray of light was

unconsciously given him by Mr Dorrit himself and by his son; to both of

whom he easily became known; with both of whom he talked much, casually

('but always Moleing you'll observe,' said Mr Pancks): and from whom he

derived, without being at all suspected, two or three little points of

family history which, as he began to hold clues of his own, suggested

others.




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