Little Dorrit Vol.1 f.018 recto

collected two or three, and wipedstood wiping his hot [???] hands upon them, with his back to the light.

“Well?,” he [????] [??? ???? ???????] demanded after a pause silence, “Death of my Soul why[??] don't[??] you say[??] something[??] Have you nothing to say to all [???]that?”

“[?? the T??????????]Hah! It’s ugly,” returned the little man, who had risen, and was cleaning brightening his knife upon his shoe, as he leaned an arm against the wall.

“What do you mean?”

"[?? ????] my [??] master [??] John Baptist [?????] his head [?? ????] brightened polished his knife in silence.

“Do you mean that [??????????that we all have a gentleman's????] I have not [???????]represented the case [?truly?] correctly?”

[???] a “Al-tro!” returned John Baptist. The word was an apology now, and stood for [????????????] “O Oh, by no means!”

“What then?”

“Presidents and tribunals are so prejudiced.”

“Well,” cried the other, uneasily flinging the end of his cloak over his shoulder with an oath, “let them do their worst!”

“Truly I think they will,” murmured John Baptist to himself, as he bent his head to put his knife in his sash.

Nothing more was said on either side, though they both began walking to and fro, and necessarily crossed at every turn. Monsieur Rigaud sometimes stopped, as if he were going to put his case in a new light, or make some irate remonstrance; but Signor Cavalletto continuing to go slowly to and fro at a grotesque kind of jog-trot pace with his eyes turned downward, nothing came of these inclinings.

By-and-by the noise of the key in the lock arrested them both. The sound of voices succeeded, and the tread of feet. The door clashed, the voices and the feet came on, and the prison-keeper slowly ascended the stairs, followed by a guard of soldiers.

“Now, Monsieur Rigaud,” said he, pausing for a moment at the grate, with his keys in his hands, “have the goodness to come out.”

“I am to depart in state, I see?”

“Why, unless you did,” returned the jailer, “you might depart in so many pieces that it would be difficult to get you together again. There’s a crowd, Monsieur Rigaud, and it doesn’t love you.”

He passed on out of sight, and unlocked and unbarred a low door in the corner of the chamber. “Now,” said he, as he opened it and appeared within, “come out.”

There is no sort of whiteness in all the hues under the sun at all like the whiteness of Monsieur Rigaud’s face as it was then. Neither is there any expression of the human countenance at all like that expression in every little line of which the frightened heart is seen to beat. Both are conventionally compared with death; but the difference is the whole deep gulf between the struggle done, and the fight at its most desperate extremity.

He lighted another of his paper cigars at his companion’s; put it tightly between his teeth; covered his head with a soft slouched hat; threw the end of his cloak over his shoulder again; and walked out into the side