Little Dorrit - Charles Dickens (best novels for students .TXT) 📗

hand stoutly; “and now you shall have any explanation and every explanation. The fact is, I was here⁠—came straight to you from the Allongers and Marshongers, or I should be ashamed to look you in the face this day⁠—but you were not in company trim at the moment, and I had to start off again to catch Doyce.”

“Poor Doyce!” sighed Arthur.

“Don’t call him names that he don’t deserve,” said Mr. Meagles. “He’s not poor; he’s doing well enough. Doyce is a wonderful fellow over there. I assure you he is making out his case like a house afire. He has fallen on his legs, has Dan. Where they don’t want things done and find a man to do ’em, that man’s off his legs; but where they do want things done and find a man to do ’em, that man’s on his legs. You won’t have occasion to trouble the Circumlocution Office any more. Let me tell you, Dan has done without ’em!”

“What a load you take from my mind!” cried Arthur. “What happiness you give me!”

“Happiness?” retorted Mr. Meagles. “Don’t talk about happiness till you see Dan. I assure you Dan is directing works and executing labours over yonder, that it would make your hair stand on end to look at. He’s no public offender, bless you, now! He’s medalled and ribboned, and starred and crossed, and I don’t-know-what all’d, like a born nobleman. But we mustn’t talk about that over here.”

“Why not?”

“Oh, egad!” said Mr. Meagles, shaking his head very seriously, “he must hide all those things under lock and key when he comes over here. They won’t do over here. In that particular, Britannia is a Britannia in the Manger⁠—won’t give her children such distinctions herself, and won’t allow them to be seen when they are given by other countries. No, no, Dan!” said Mr. Meagles, shaking his head again. “That won’t do here!”

“If you had brought me (except for Doyce’s sake) twice what I have lost,” cried Arthur, “you would not have given me the pleasure that you give me in this news.”

“Why, of course, of course,” assented Mr. Meagles. “Of course I know that, my good fellow, and therefore I come out with it in the first burst. Now, to go back, about catching Doyce. I caught Doyce. Ran against him among a lot of those dirty brown dogs in women’s nightcaps a great deal too big for ’em, calling themselves Arabs and all sorts of incoherent races. You know ’em! Well! He was coming straight to me, and I was going to him, and so we came back together.”

“Doyce in England!” exclaimed Arthur.

“There!” said Mr. Meagles, throwing open his arms. “I am the worst man in the world to manage a thing of this sort. I don’t know what I should have done if I had been in the diplomatic line⁠—right, perhaps! The long and short of it is, Arthur, we have both been in England this fortnight. And if you go on to ask where Doyce is at the present moment, why, my plain answer is⁠—here he is! And now I can breathe again at last!”

Doyce darted in from behind the door, caught Arthur by both hands, and said the rest for himself.

“There are only three branches of my subject, my dear Clennam,” said Doyce, proceeding to mould them severally, with his plastic thumb, on the palm of his hand, “and they’re soon disposed of. First, not a word more from you about the past. There was an error in your calculations. I know what that is. It affects the whole machine, and failure is the consequence. You will profit by the failure, and will avoid it another time. I have done a similar thing myself, in construction, often. Every failure teaches a man something, if he will learn; and you are too sensible a man not to learn from this failure. So much for firstly. Secondly. I was sorry you should have taken it so heavily to heart, and reproached yourself so severely; I was travelling home night and day to put matters right, with the assistance of our friend, when I fell in with our friend as he has informed you. Thirdly. We two agreed, that, after what you had undergone, after your distress of mind, and after your illness, it would be a pleasant surprise if we could so far keep quiet as to get things perfectly arranged without your knowledge, and then come and say that all the affairs were smooth, that everything was right, that the business stood in greater want of you than ever it did, and that a new and prosperous career was opened before you and me as partners. That’s thirdly. But you know we always make an allowance for friction, and so I have reserved space to close in. My dear Clennam, I thoroughly confide in you; you have it in your power to be quite as useful to me as I have, or have had, it in my power to be useful to you; your old place awaits you, and wants you very much; there is nothing to detain you here one half-hour longer.”

There was silence, which was not broken until Arthur had stood for some time at the window with his back towards them, and until his little wife that was to be had gone to him and stayed by him.

“I made a remark a little while ago,” said Daniel Doyce then, “which I am inclined to think was an incorrect one. I said there was nothing to detain you here, Clennam, half an hour longer. Am I mistaken in supposing that you would rather not leave here till tomorrow morning? Do I know, without being very wise, where you would like to go, direct from these walls and from this room?”

“You do,” returned Arthur. “It has been our cherished purpose.”

“Very well!” said Doyce. “Then, if this young lady will do me the honour of regarding me for four-and-twenty hours in the light of a father, and will