A great deal of business was transacted in this short period. Among

other items, Messrs Peddle and Pool, solicitors, of Monument Yard, were

instructed by their client Edward Dorrit, Esquire, to address a letter

to Mr Arthur Clennam, enclosing the sum of twenty-four pounds nine

shillings and eightpence, being the amount of principal and interest

computed at the rate of five per cent. per annum, in which their

client believed himself to be indebted to Mr Clennam. In making this

communication and remittance, Messrs Peddle and Pool were further

instructed by their client to remind Mr Clennam that the favour of the

advance now repaid (including gate-fees) had not been asked of him, and

to inform him that it would not have been accepted if it had been openly

proffered in his name.

With which they requested a stamped receipt, and

remained his obedient servants. A great deal of business had likewise to

be done, within the so-soon-to-be-orphaned Marshalsea, by Mr Dorrit

so long its Father, chiefly arising out of applications made to him

by Collegians for small sums of money. To these he responded with the

greatest liberality, and with no lack of formality; always first writing

to appoint a time at which the applicant might wait upon him in his

room, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast accumulation of

documents, and accompanying his donation (for he said in every such

case, 'it is a donation, not a loan') with a great deal of good counsel:

to the effect that he, the expiring Father of the Marshalsea, hoped to

be long remembered, as an example that a man might preserve his own and

the general respect even there.

The Collegians were not envious. Besides that they had a personal and

traditional regard for a Collegian of so many years' standing, the event

was creditable to the College, and made it famous in the newspapers.

Perhaps more of them thought, too, than were quite aware of it, that the

thing might in the lottery of chances have happened to themselves, or

that something of the sort might yet happen to themselves some day or

other. They took it very well. A few were low at the thought of being

left behind, and being left poor; but even these did not grudge the

family their brilliant reverse. There might have been much more envy in

politer places. It seems probable that mediocrity of fortune would have

been disposed to be less magnanimous than the Collegians, who lived from

hand to mouth--from the pawnbroker's hand to the day's dinner.

They got up an address to him, which they presented in a neat frame and

glass (though it was not afterwards displayed in the family mansion or

preserved among the family papers); and to which he returned a gracious

answer. In that document he assured them, in a Royal manner, that he

received the profession of their attachment with a full conviction

of its sincerity; and again generally exhorted them to follow his

example--which, at least in so far as coming into a great property was

concerned, there is no doubt they would have gladly imitated. He took

the same occasion of inviting them to a comprehensive entertainment, to

be given to the whole College in the yard, and at which he signified

he would have the honour of taking a parting glass to the health and

happiness of all those whom he was about to leave behind.




readonlinefreebook.com Copyright 2016 - 2024