Little Dorrit Vol.1 f.037 recto

pick at anything.

“Ver y well, then,” said the old man; “make [??] his bed. Stir yourself.!”

His [?????] neck was so twisted , that the knot of his coat frayed white cravat [????] frayed white settled half ??????????under one ear; His ??????? ??????? His his [???????? ????] natural ?????acerbity [??????] and energy, always [????????] contending with a second nature of [?????? habitual] habitual when ire gave [????? suffused] his features a swollen and and suffused look; and altogether, he had a [??????] appearance [????????] of having gone of having hanged himself up at [????] [???????] one time or other, and of having gone [???????] about ever since, halter and all, [????? ???????? ??????? ???????] exactly as some timely hand had cut him down.

“Yule Yullhave bitter some bitter words on the yon together tomorrow, [?????] Arthur [????]; you and your mother,” said the ??? ???? ?????? Jeremiah. “Your having given up the business on your father’s death—which she suspects, though [?????." ???? ????? ??????? ?????] we have left it to you to tell her—won’t go off smoothly.”

“I have given up everything in life for [?????] the business, and the time [has come when ????,] came for me to give up that. [?????].” [???? ?????? ?????????? ????]

“Good!” [???????????? ????? ?????? ???????? ?????? ?????????? ????????] cried Jeremiah, evidently meaning [????] Bad. “Very good! only don’t expect me to stand between your mother and you, Arthur. I stood between your mother and your father, fending off this, and fending off that, and getting crushed and pounded betwixt em; and I’ve done with such work.”

“You will never be asked to begin it again for me, Jeremiah.”

“Good. I’m glad to hear it; because I should have had to decline it, if I had been. That’s enough—as your mother says—and more than enough of such matters on a Sabbath night. Affery, woman, have you found what you want yet?”

She had been collecting sheets and blankets from a press, and hastened to gather them up, and to reply, “Yes, Jeremiah.” Arthur Clennam helped her by carrying the load himself, wished the old man good night, and went up-stairs with her to the top of the house.

They mounted up and up, through the musty smell of an old close house, little used, to a large garret bed-room. Meagre and spare, like all the other rooms, it was even uglier and grimmer than the rest, by being the place of banishment for the worn-out furniture. Its movables were ugly old chairs with worn-out seats, and ugly old chairs without any seats; a threadbare patternless carpet, a maimed table, a crippled wardrobe, a lean set of fire-irons like the skeleton of a set deceased, a washing-stand that looked as if it had stood for ages in a hail of dirty soapsuds, and a bedstead with four bare atomies of posts, each terminating in a spike, as if for the dismal accommodation of lodgers who might prefer to impale themselves. Arthur opened the long low window, and looked out upon the old blasted and blackened forest of chimneys, and the old red glare in the sky, which had seemed to him once upon a time but a nightly reflection of the fiery environment that was presented to his childish fancy in all directions, let it look where it would.

He drew in his head again, sat down at the bedside, and looked on at Affery Flintwinch making the bed.

“Affery, you were not married when I went away.”

She screwed her mouth into the form of saying “No,” shook her head, and proceeded