If the guests chose to partake of what

was served, he saw no objection; but it was served for the maintenance

of his rank. As he stood by the sideboard he seemed to announce, 'I have

accepted office to look at this which is now before me, and to look at

nothing less than this.' If he missed the presiding bosom, it was as a

part of his own state of which he was, from unavoidable circumstances,

temporarily deprived, just as he might have missed a centre-piece, or a

choice wine-cooler, which had been sent to the Banker's.

Mr Merdle issued invitations for a Barnacle dinner. Lord Decimus was to

be there, Mr Tite Barnacle was to be there, the pleasant young Barnacle

was to be there; and the Chorus of Parliamentary Barnacles who went

about the provinces when the House was up, warbling the praises of their

Chief, were to be represented there. It was understood to be a great

occasion. Mr Merdle was going to take up the Barnacles. Some delicate

little negotiations had occurred between him and the noble Decimus--the

young Barnacle of engaging manners acting as negotiator--and Mr Merdle

had decided to cast the weight of his great probity and great riches

into the Barnacle scale. Jobbery was suspected by the malicious; perhaps

because it was indisputable that if the adherence of the immortal Enemy

of Mankind could have been secured by a job, the Barnacles would have

jobbed him--for the good of the country, for the good of the country.

Mrs Merdle had written to this magnificent spouse of hers, whom it was

heresy to regard as anything less than all the British Merchants since

the days of Whittington rolled into one, and gilded three feet deep all

over--had written to this spouse of hers, several letters from Rome, in

quick succession, urging upon him with importunity that now or never was

the time to provide for Edmund Sparkler. Mrs Merdle had shown him that

the case of Edmund was urgent, and that infinite advantages might result

from his having some good thing directly. In the grammar of Mrs

Merdle's verbs on this momentous subject, there was only one mood, the

Imperative; and that Mood had only one Tense, the Present. Mrs Merdle's

verbs were so pressingly presented to Mr Merdle to conjugate, that his

sluggish blood and his long coat-cuffs became quite agitated.

In which state of agitation, Mr Merdle, evasively rolling his eyes

round the Chief Butler's shoes without raising them to the index of that

stupendous creature's thoughts, had signified to him his intention of

giving a special dinner: not a very large dinner, but a very special

dinner. The Chief Butler had signified, in return, that he had no

objection to look on at the most expensive thing in that way that could

be done; and the day of the dinner was now come.

Mr Merdle stood in one of his drawing-rooms, with his back to the fire,

waiting for the arrival of his important guests. He seldom or never took

the liberty of standing with his back to the fire unless he was quite

alone. In the presence of the Chief Butler, he could not have done such

a deed. He would have clasped himself by the wrists in that constabulary

manner of his, and have paced up and down the hearthrug, or gone

creeping about among the rich objects of furniture, if his oppressive

retainer had appeared in the room at that very moment. The sly shadows

which seemed to dart out of hiding when the fire rose, and to dart back

into it when the fire fell, were sufficient witnesses of his making

himself so easy.

They were even more than sufficient, if his uncomfortable glances at

them might be taken to mean anything.

Mr Merdle's right hand was filled with the evening paper, and the

evening paper was full of Mr Merdle. His wonderful enterprise, his

wonderful wealth, his wonderful Bank, were the fattening food of the

evening paper that night. The wonderful Bank, of which he was the chief

projector, establisher, and manager, was the latest of the many Merdle

wonders. So modest was Mr Merdle withal, in the midst of these splendid

achievements, that he looked far more like a man in possession of his

house under a distraint, than a commercial Colossus bestriding his own

hearthrug, while the little ships were sailing into dinner.

Behold the vessels coming into port! The engaging young Barnacle was the

first arrival; but Bar overtook him on the staircase. Bar, strengthened

as usual with his double eye-glass and his little jury droop, was

overjoyed to see the engaging young Barnacle; and opined that we were

going to sit in Banco, as we lawyers called it, to take a special

argument?

'Indeed,' said the sprightly young Barnacle, whose name was Ferdinand;

'how so?'

'Nay,' smiled Bar. 'If you don't know, how can I know? You are in the

innermost sanctuary of the temple; I am one of the admiring concourse on

the plain without.'

Bar could be light in hand, or heavy in hand, according to the customer

he had to deal with. With Ferdinand Barnacle he was gossamer. Bar was

likewise always modest and self-depreciatory--in his way. Bar was a man

of great variety; but one leading thread ran through the woof of all his

patterns. Every man with whom he had to do was in his eyes a jury-man;

and he must get that jury-man over, if he could.

'Our illustrious host and friend,' said Bar; 'our shining mercantile

star;--going into politics?'

'Going? He has been in Parliament some time, you know,' returned the

engaging young Barnacle.

'True,' said Bar, with his light-comedy laugh for special jury-men,

which was a very different thing from his low-comedy laugh for comic

tradesmen on common juries: 'he has been in Parliament for some time.

Yet hitherto our star has been a vacillating and wavering star? Humph?'

An average witness would have been seduced by the Humph? into an

affirmative answer, But Ferdinand Barnacle looked knowingly at Bar as he

strolled up-stairs, and gave him no answer at all.

'Just so, just so,' said Bar, nodding his head, for he was not to be put

off in that way, 'and therefore I spoke of our sitting in Banco to take

a special argument--meaning this to be a high and solemn occasion, when,

as Captain Macheath says, "the judges are met: a terrible show!" We

lawyers are sufficiently liberal, you see, to quote the Captain, though

the Captain is severe upon us. Nevertheless, I think I could put in

evidence an admission of the Captain's,' said Bar, with a little jocose

roll of his head; for, in his legal current of speech, he always assumed

the air of rallying himself with the best grace in the world; 'an

admission of the Captain's that Law, in the gross, is at least

intended to be impartial. For what says the Captain, if I quote

him correctly--and if not,' with a light-comedy touch of his double

eye-glass on his companion's shoulder, 'my learned friend will set me

right:

"Since laws were made for every degree,

To curb vice in others as well as in me,

I wonder we ha'n't better company

Upon Tyburn Tree!"'

These words brought them to the drawing-room, where Mr Merdle stood

before the fire. So immensely astounded was Mr Merdle by the entrance

of Bar with such a reference in his mouth, that Bar explained himself

to have been quoting Gay. 'Assuredly not one of our Westminster Hall

authorities,' said he, 'but still no despicable one to a man possessing

the largely-practical Mr Merdle's knowledge of the world.'

Mr Merdle looked as if he thought he would say something, but

subsequently looked as if he thought he wouldn't. The interval afforded

time for Bishop to be announced. Bishop came in with meekness, and yet

with a strong and rapid step as if he wanted to get his seven-league

dress-shoes on, and go round the world to see that everybody was in

a satisfactory state. Bishop had no idea that there was anything

significant in the occasion. That was the most remarkable trait in

his demeanour. He was crisp, fresh, cheerful, affable, bland; but so

surprisingly innocent.

Bar sidled up to prefer his politest inquiries in reference to the

health of Mrs Bishop. Mrs Bishop had been a little unfortunate in the

article of taking cold at a Confirmation, but otherwise was well. Young

Mr Bishop was also well. He was down, with his young wife and little

family, at his Cure of Souls. The representatives of the Barnacle Chorus

dropped in next, and Mr Merdle's physician dropped in next. Bar, who

had a bit of one eye and a bit of his double eye-glass for every one who

came in at the door, no matter with whom he was conversing or what he

was talking about, got among them all by some skilful means, without

being seen to get at them, and touched each individual gentleman of the

jury on his own individual favourite spot. With some of the Chorus,

he laughed about the sleepy member who had gone out into the lobby the

other night, and voted the wrong way: with others, he deplored that

innovating spirit in the time which could not even be prevented from

taking an unnatural interest in the public service and the public money:

with the physician he had a word to say about the general health; he had

also a little information to ask him for, concerning a professional man

of unquestioned erudition and polished manners--but those credentials

in their highest development he believed were the possession of other

professors of the healing art (jury droop)--whom he had happened to

have in the witness-box the day before yesterday, and from whom he had

elicited in cross-examination that he claimed to be one of the exponents

of this new mode of treatment which appeared to Bar to--eh?--well, Bar

thought so; Bar had thought, and hoped, Physician would tell him so.

Without presuming to decide where doctors disagreed, it did appear to

Bar, viewing it as a question of common sense and not of so-called legal

penetration, that this new system was--might be, in the presence of so

great an authority--say, Humbug? Ah! Fortified by such encouragement, he

could venture to say Humbug; and now Bar's mind was relieved.

Mr Tite Barnacle, who, like Dr johnson's celebrated acquaintance, had

only one idea in his head and that was a wrong one, had appeared by this

time. This eminent gentleman and Mr Merdle, seated diverse ways and with

ruminating aspects on a yellow ottoman in the light of the fire,

holding no verbal communication with each other, bore a strong general

resemblance to the two cows in the Cuyp picture over against them.

But now, Lord Decimus arrived. The Chief Butler, who up to this time

had limited himself to a branch of his usual function by looking at the

company as they entered (and that, with more of defiance than favour),

put himself so far out of his way as to come up-stairs with him and

announce him. Lord Decimus being an overpowering peer, a bashful young

member of the Lower House who was the last fish but one caught by the

Barnacles, and who had been invited on this occasion to commemorate his

capture, shut his eyes when his Lordship came in.

Lord Decimus, nevertheless, was glad to see the Member. He was also

glad to see Mr Merdle, glad to see Bishop, glad to see Bar, glad to see

Physician, glad to see Tite Barnacle, glad to see Chorus, glad to

see Ferdinand his private secretary. Lord Decimus, though one of the

greatest of the earth, was not remarkable for ingratiatory manners, and

Ferdinand had coached him up to the point of noticing all the fellows

he might find there, and saying he was glad to see them. When he had

achieved this rush of vivacity and condescension, his Lordship composed

himself into the picture after Cuyp, and made a third cow in the group.

Bar, who felt that he had got all the rest of the jury and must now lay

hold of the Foreman, soon came sidling up, double eye-glass in hand. Bar

tendered the weather, as a subject neatly aloof from official reserve,

for the Foreman's consideration. Bar said that he was told (as everybody

always is told, though who tells them, and why, will ever remain a

mystery), that there was to be no wall-fruit this year. Lord Decimus

had not heard anything amiss of his peaches, but rather believed, if his

people were correct, he was to have no apples. No apples? Bar was lost

in astonishment and concern. It would have been all one to him, in

reality, if there had not been a pippin on the surface of the earth, but

his show of interest in this apple question was positively painful.

Now, to what, Lord Decimus--for we troublesome lawyers loved to gather

information, and could never tell how useful it might prove to us--to

what, Lord Decimus, was this to be attributed? Lord Decimus could not

undertake to propound any theory about it. This might have stopped

another man; but Bar, sticking to him fresh as ever, said, 'As to pears,

now?'

Long after Bar got made Attorney-General, this was told of him as

a master-stroke. Lord Decimus had a reminiscence about a pear-tree

formerly growing in a garden near the back of his dame's house at Eton,

upon which pear-tree the only joke of his life perennially bloomed. It

was a joke of a compact and portable nature, turning on the difference

between Eton pears and Parliamentary pairs; but it was a joke, a refined

relish of which would seem to have appeared to Lord Decimus impossible

to be had without a thorough and intimate acquaintance with the tree.

Therefore, the story at first had no idea of such a tree, sir, then

gradually found it in winter, carried it through the changing season,

saw it bud, saw it blossom, saw it bear fruit, saw the fruit ripen; in

short, cultivated the tree in that diligent and minute manner before it

got out of the bed-room window to steal the fruit, that many thanks had

been offered up by belated listeners for the trees having been planted

and grafted prior to Lord Decimus's time. Bar's interest in apples was

so overtopped by the wrapt suspense in which he pursued the changes

of these pears, from the moment when Lord Decimus solemnly opened with

'Your mentioning pears recalls to my remembrance a pear-tree,' down to

the rich conclusion, 'And so we pass, through the various changes

of life, from Eton pears to Parliamentary pairs,' that he had to go

down-stairs with Lord Decimus, and even then to be seated next to him

at table in order that he might hear the anecdote out. By that time, Bar

felt that he had secured the Foreman, and might go to dinner with a good

appetite.

It was a dinner to provoke an appetite, though he had not had one. The

rarest dishes, sumptuously cooked and sumptuously served; the choicest

fruits; the most exquisite wines; marvels of workmanship in gold and

silver, china and glass; innumerable things delicious to the senses of

taste, smell, and sight, were insinuated into its composition. O, what

a wonderful man this Merdle, what a great man, what a master man, how

blessedly and enviably endowed--in one word, what a rich man!

He took his usual poor eighteenpennyworth of food in his usual

indigestive way, and had as little to say for himself as ever a

wonderful man had. Fortunately Lord Decimus was one of those sublimities

who have no occasion to be talked to, for they can be at any time

sufficiently occupied with the contemplation of their own greatness.

This enabled the bashful young Member to keep his eyes open long enough

at a time to see his dinner. But, whenever Lord Decimus spoke, he shut

them again.

The agreeable young Barnacle, and Bar, were the talkers of the party.

Bishop would have been exceedingly agreeable also, but that his

innocence stood in his way. He was so soon left behind. When there was

any little hint of anything being in the wind, he got lost directly.

Worldly affairs were too much for him; he couldn't make them out at all.

This was observable when Bar said, incidentally, that he was happy to

have heard that we were soon to have the advantage of enlisting on

the good side, the sound and plain sagacity--not demonstrative or

ostentatious, but thoroughly sound and practical--of our friend Mr

Sparkler.

Ferdinand Barnacle laughed, and said oh yes, he believed so. A vote was

a vote, and always acceptable.

Bar was sorry to miss our good friend Mr Sparkler to-day, Mr Merdle.

'He is away with Mrs Merdle,' returned that gentleman, slowly coming

out of a long abstraction, in the course of which he had been fitting a

tablespoon up his sleeve. 'It is not indispensable for him to be on the

spot.'

'The magic name of Merdle,' said Bar, with the jury droop, 'no doubt

will suffice for all.'

'Why--yes--I believe so,' assented Mr Merdle, putting the spoon aside,

and clumsily hiding each of his hands in the coat-cuff of the other

hand. 'I believe the people in my interest down there will not make any

difficulty.'

'Model people!' said Bar. 'I am glad you approve of them,' said Mr

Merdle.

'And the people of those other two places, now,' pursued Bar, with a

bright twinkle in his keen eye, as it slightly turned in the direction

of his magnificent neighbour; 'we lawyers are always curious, always

inquisitive, always picking up odds and ends for our patchwork minds,

since there is no knowing when and where they may fit into some

corner;--the people of those other two places now? Do they yield so

laudably to the vast and cumulative influence of such enterprise and

such renown; do those little rills become absorbed so quietly

and easily, and, as it were by the influence of natural laws, so

beautifully, in the swoop of the majestic stream as it flows upon its

wondrous way enriching the surrounding lands; that their course is

perfectly to be calculated, and distinctly to be predicated?'

Mr Merdle, a little troubled by Bar's eloquence, looked fitfully about

the nearest salt-cellar for some moments, and then said hesitating:

'They are perfectly aware, sir, of their duty to Society. They will

return anybody I send to them for that purpose.'

'Cheering to know,' said Bar. 'Cheering to know.'

The three places in question were three little rotten holes in this

Island, containing three little ignorant, drunken, guzzling, dirty,

out-of-the-way constituencies, that had reeled into Mr Merdle's pocket.

Ferdinand Barnacle laughed in his easy way, and airily said they were

a nice set of fellows. Bishop, mentally perambulating among paths of

peace, was altogether swallowed up in absence of mind.

'Pray,' asked Lord Decimus, casting his eyes around the table, 'what

is this story I have heard of a gentleman long confined in a debtors'

prison proving to be of a wealthy family, and having come into the

inheritance of a large sum of money? I have met with a variety of

allusions to it. Do you know anything of it, Ferdinand?'

'I only know this much,' said Ferdinand, 'that he has given the

Department with which I have the honour to be associated;' this

sparkling young Barnacle threw off the phrase sportively, as who should

say, We know all about these forms of speech, but we must keep it up,

we must keep the game alive; 'no end of trouble, and has put us into

innumerable fixes.'

'Fixes?' repeated Lord Decimus, with a majestic pausing and pondering

on the word that made the bashful Member shut his eyes quite tight.

'Fixes?'

'A very perplexing business indeed,' observed Mr Tite Barnacle, with an

air of grave resentment.

'What,' said Lord Decimus, 'was the character of his business; what was

the nature of these--a--Fixes, Ferdinand?'

'Oh, it's a good story, as a story,' returned that gentleman; 'as good

a thing of its kind as need be. This Mr Dorrit (his name is Dorrit) had

incurred a responsibility to us, ages before the fairy came out of

the Bank and gave him his fortune, under a bond he had signed for the

performance of a contract which was not at all performed. He was a

partner in a house in some large way--spirits, or buttons, or wine, or

blacking, or oatmeal, or woollen, or pork, or hooks and eyes, or iron,

or treacle, or shoes, or something or other that was wanted for troops,

or seamen, or somebody--and the house burst, and we being among

the creditors, detainees were lodged on the part of the Crown in a

scientific manner, and all the rest Of it. When the fairy had appeared

and he wanted to pay us off, Egad we had got into such an exemplary

state of checking and counter-checking, signing and counter-signing,

that it was six months before we knew how to take the money, or how to

give a receipt for it. It was a triumph of public business,' said this

handsome young Barnacle, laughing heartily, 'You never saw such a lot of

forms in your life. "Why," the attorney said to me one day, "if I wanted

this office to give me two or three thousand pounds instead of take it,

I couldn't have more trouble about it." "You are right, old fellow,"

I told him, "and in future you'll know that we have something to do

here."' The pleasant young Barnacle finished by once more laughing

heartily. He was a very easy, pleasant fellow indeed, and his manners

were exceedingly winning.

Mr Tite Barnacle's view of the business was of a less airy character. He

took it ill that Mr Dorrit had troubled the Department by wanting to

pay the money, and considered it a grossly informal thing to do after so

many years. But Mr Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently

a weighty one. All buttoned-up men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are

believed in. Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of

unbuttoning, fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to

condense and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned;

it is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the

buttoned-up man. Mr Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his

current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to his white

cravat.

'May I ask,' said Lord Decimus, 'if Mr Darrit--or Dorrit--has any

family?'

Nobody else replying, the host said, 'He has two daughters, my lord.'

'Oh! you are acquainted with him?' asked Lord Decimus.

'Mrs Merdle is. Mr Sparkler is, too. In fact,' said Mr Merdle, 'I rather

believe that one of the young ladies has made an impression on Edmund

Sparkler. He is susceptible, and--I--think--the conquest--' Here Mr

Merdle stopped, and looked at the table-cloth, as he usually did when he

found himself observed or listened to.

Bar was uncommonly pleased to find that the Merdle family, and this

family, had already been brought into contact. He submitted, in a low

voice across the table to Bishop, that it was a kind of analogical

illustration of those physical laws, in virtue of which Like flies to

Like. He regarded this power of attraction in wealth to draw wealth

to it, as something remarkably interesting and curious--something

indefinably allied to the loadstone and gravitation. Bishop, who

had ambled back to earth again when the present theme was broached,

acquiesced. He said it was indeed highly important to Society that one

in the trying situation of unexpectedly finding himself invested with a

power for good or for evil in Society, should become, as it were, merged

in the superior power of a more legitimate and more gigantic growth, the

influence of which (as in the case of our friend at whose board we sat)

was habitually exercised in harmony with the best interests of Society.

Thus, instead of two rival and contending flames, a larger and a lesser,

each burning with a lurid and uncertain glare, we had a blended and a

softened light whose genial ray diffused an equable warmth throughout

the land. Bishop seemed to like his own way of putting the case very

much, and rather dwelt upon it; Bar, meanwhile (not to throw away a

jury-man), making a show of sitting at his feet and feeding on his

precepts.

The dinner and dessert being three hours long, the bashful Member cooled

in the shadow of Lord Decimus faster than he warmed with food and drink,

and had but a chilly time of it. Lord Decimus, like a tall tower in a

flat country, seemed to project himself across the table-cloth, hide the

light from the honourable Member, cool the honourable Member's marrow,

and give him a woeful idea of distance. When he asked this unfortunate

traveller to take wine, he encompassed his faltering steps with the

gloomiest of shades; and when he said, 'Your health sir!' all around him

was barrenness and desolation.

At length Lord Decimus, with a coffee-cup in his hand, began to hover

about among the pictures, and to cause an interesting speculation to

arise in all minds as to the probabilities of his ceasing to hover, and

enabling the smaller birds to flutter up-stairs; which could not be

done until he had urged his noble pinions in that direction. After some

delay, and several stretches of his wings which came to nothing, he

soared to the drawing-rooms.

And here a difficulty arose, which always does arise when two people

are specially brought together at a dinner to confer with one another.

Everybody (except Bishop, who had no suspicion of it) knew perfectly

well that this dinner had been eaten and drunk, specifically to the end

that Lord Decimus and Mr Merdle should have five minutes' conversation

together. The opportunity so elaborately prepared was now arrived, and

it seemed from that moment that no mere human ingenuity could so much as

get the two chieftains into the same room. Mr Merdle and his noble guest

persisted in prowling about at opposite ends of the perspective. It was

in vain for the engaging Ferdinand to bring Lord Decimus to look at the

bronze horses near Mr Merdle. Then Mr Merdle evaded, and wandered away.

It was in vain for him to bring Mr Merdle to Lord Decimus to tell him

the history of the unique Dresden vases. Then Lord Decimus evaded and

wandered away, while he was getting his man up to the mark.

'Did you ever see such a thing as this?' said Ferdinand to Bar when he

had been baffled twenty times.

'Often,' returned Bar.

'Unless I butt one of them into an appointed corner, and you butt the

other,' said Ferdinand,'it will not come off after all.'

'Very good,' said Bar. 'I'll butt Merdle, if you like; but not my lord.'

Ferdinand laughed, in the midst of his vexation. 'Confound them both!'

said he, looking at his watch. 'I want to get away. Why the deuce can't

they come together! They both know what they want and mean to do. Look

at them!'

They were still looming at opposite ends of the perspective, each with

an absurd pretence of not having the other on his mind, which could not

have been more transparently ridiculous though his real mind had been

chalked on his back. Bishop, who had just now made a third with Bar and

Ferdinand, but whose innocence had again cut him out of the subject and

washed him in sweet oil, was seen to approach Lord Decimus and glide

into conversation.

'I must get Merdle's doctor to catch and secure him, I suppose,' said

Ferdinand; 'and then I must lay hold of my illustrious kinsman, and

decoy him if I can--drag him if I can't--to the conference.'

'Since you do me the honour,' said Bar, with his slyest smile, to ask

for my poor aid, it shall be yours with the greatest pleasure. I don't

think this is to be done by one man. But if you will undertake to pen

my lord into that furthest drawing-room where he is now so profoundly

engaged, I will undertake to bring our dear Merdle into the presence,

without the possibility of getting away.'

'Done!' said Ferdinand.

'Done!' said Bar.

Bar was a sight wondrous to behold, and full of matter, when, jauntily

waving his double eye-glass by its ribbon, and jauntily drooping to an

Universe of jurymen, he, in the most accidental manner ever seen,

found himself at Mr Merdle's shoulder, and embraced that opportunity of

mentioning a little point to him, on which he particularly wished to

be guided by the light of his practical knowledge. (Here he took Mr

Merdle's arm and walked him gently away.) A banker, whom we would call

A. B., advanced a considerable sum of money, which we would call fifteen

thousand pounds, to a client or customer of his, whom he would call P.

q. (Here, as they were getting towards Lord Decimus, he held Mr Merdle

tight.) As a security for the repayment of this advance to P. Q. whom

we would call a widow lady, there were placed in A. B.'s hands the

title-deeds of a freehold estate, which we would call Blinkiter Doddles.

Now, the point was this. A limited right of felling and lopping in

the woods of Blinkiter Doddles, lay in the son of P. Q. then past his

majority, and whom we would call X. Y.--but really this was too bad! In

the presence of Lord Decimus, to detain the host with chopping our dry

chaff of law, was really too bad! Another time! Bar was truly repentant,

and would not say another syllable. Would Bishop favour him with

half-a-dozen words? (He had now set Mr Merdle down on a couch, side by

side with Lord Decimus, and to it they must go, now or never.)

And now the rest of the company, highly excited and interested, always

excepting Bishop, who had not the slightest idea that anything was going

on, formed in one group round the fire in the next drawing-room, and

pretended to be chatting easily on the infinite variety of small topics,

while everybody's thoughts and eyes were secretly straying towards the

secluded pair. The Chorus were excessively nervous, perhaps as labouring

under the dreadful apprehension that some good thing was going to

be diverted from them! Bishop alone talked steadily and evenly. He

conversed with the great Physician on that relaxation of the throat with

which young curates were too frequently afflicted, and on the means

of lessening the great prevalence of that disorder in the church.

Physician, as a general rule, was of opinion that the best way to avoid

it was to know how to read, before you made a profession of reading.

Bishop said dubiously, did he really think so? And Physician said,

decidedly, yes he did.

Ferdinand, meanwhile, was the only one of the party who skirmished on

the outside of the circle; he kept about mid-way between it and the

two, as if some sort of surgical operation were being performed by Lord

Decimus on Mr Merdle, or by Mr Merdle on Lord Decimus, and his services

might at any moment be required as Dresser. In fact, within a quarter

of an hour Lord Decimus called to him 'Ferdinand!' and he went, and

took his place in the conference for some five minutes more. Then a

half-suppressed gasp broke out among the Chorus; for Lord Decimus rose

to take his leave. Again coached up by Ferdinand to the point of making

himself popular, he shook hands in the most brilliant manner with the

whole company, and even said to Bar, 'I hope you were not bored by my

pears?' To which Bar retorted, 'Eton, my lord, or Parliamentary?' neatly

showing that he had mastered the joke, and delicately insinuating that

he could never forget it while his life remained.

All the grave importance that was buttoned up in Mr Tite Barnacle, took

itself away next; and Ferdinand took himself away next, to the opera.

Some of the rest lingered a little, marrying golden liqueur glasses to

Buhl tables with sticky rings; on the desperate chance of Mr Merdle's

saying something. But Merdle, as usual, oozed sluggishly and muddily

about his drawing-room, saying never a word.

In a day or two it was announced to all the town, that Edmund Sparkler,

Esquire, son-in-law of the eminent Mr Merdle of worldwide renown, was

made one of the Lords of the Circumlocution Office; and proclamation was

issued, to all true believers, that this admirable appointment was to

be hailed as a graceful and gracious mark of homage, rendered by the

graceful and gracious Decimus, to that commercial interest which must

ever in a great commercial country--and all the rest of it, with

blast of trumpet. So, bolstered by this mark of Government homage, the

wonderful Bank and all the other wonderful undertakings went on and went

up; and gapers came to Harley Street, Cavendish Square, only to look at

the house where the golden wonder lived.

And when they saw the Chief Butler looking out at the hall-door in

his moments of condescension, the gapers said how rich he looked, and

wondered how much money he had in the wonderful Bank. But, if they had

known that respectable Nemesis better, they would not have wondered

about it, and might have stated the amount with the utmost precision.




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