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'I stood behind these two articles five-and-thirty years running, when I no more thought of gadding about than I now think of staying at home. When I left the Bank for good, I asked for them, and brought them away with me. Clennam's eyes had strayed to a natural picture on the wall, of two pretty little girls with their arms entwined. 'Yes, Clennam, said Mr Meagles, in a lower voice.
'From your partner? returned Henry Gowan. 'What a dear old fellow he is! 'I have a great regard for him. 'By Jove, he is the finest creature! said Gowan. 'So fresh, so green, trusts in such wonderful things! Here was one of the many little rough points that had a tendency to grate on Clennam's hearing. He put it aside by merely repeating that he had a high regard for Mr Doyce.
Mr Doyce wished him Good Night in the tone of a man who had heard a mournful, not to say despairing, exclamation, and who sought to infuse some encouragement and hope into the mind of the person by whom it had been uttered. Such tone was probably a part of his oddity, as one of a crotchety band; for how could he have heard anything of that kind, without Clennam's hearing it too?
While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts drifted over the main one that was always in Clennam's mind, Mr Flintwinch, regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his neck twisted and one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious expression upon him; more as if he were trying to bite off the stem of his pipe, than as if he were enjoying it.
'Yes, she is here. What might your name be? 'Mrs Clennam. 'Mr Clennam's mother? asked the young man. She pressed her lips together, and hesitated. 'Yes. She had better be told it is his mother. 'You see, said the young man,'the Marshal's family living in the country at present, the Marshal has given Miss Dorrit one of the rooms in his house to use when she likes.
He had only halted for a moment to entertain himself thus; he immediately went forward, throwing the end of his cloak off his shoulder as he went, ascended the unevenly sunken steps, and knocked a sounding knock at the door. Clennam's surprise was not so absorbing but that he took his resolution without any incertitude. He went up to the door too, and ascended the steps too.
Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to the end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that were too near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very carriage of the head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness from clause to clause of what he said, that he was saying nothing which Clennam did not already know. 'Whoof!
When the first letter came from little Dorrit, nobody was more interested in hearing of her than Mr Pancks. The second letter, at that moment in Clennam's breast-pocket, particularly remembered him by name.
Your dear friend has need to divert himself with all the acquaintances he can make, seeing what a wife he has. I hate his wife, sir. The anger with which she said it, the more remarkable for being so much under her restraint, fixed Clennam's attention, and kept him on the spot.
So now Mr Gowan, like that worn-out old coffin which never was Mahomet's nor anybody else's, hung midway between two points: jaundiced and jealous as to the one he had left: jaundiced and jealous as to the other that he couldn't reach. Such was the substance of Clennam's discoveries concerning him, made that rainy Sunday afternoon and afterwards.
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