Chapter 22

CHAPTER 22

A Puzzle

Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the
Marshalsea in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness
on the great Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken
admiration in the paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to
give offence in that sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a
positive shortcoming in point of gentlemanly feeling. An
impression of disappointment, occasioned by the discovery that Mr
Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for which, in the
confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give him credit,
began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that
gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family
circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts.
He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and
representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called
to pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him
personally. There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it
was) wanting in him. Howbeit, the father did not fail in any
outward show of politeness, but, on the contrary, honoured him with
much attention; perhaps cherishing the hope that, although not a
man of a sufficiently brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to
repeat his former testimonial unsolicited, it might still be within
the compass of his nature to bear the part of a responsive
gentleman, in any correspondence that way tending.

In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had
been accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance,
of the gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of
the Father of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting
him out, and of the gentleman from outside who took an interest in
the child of the Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark.

He was not surprised by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery
when that officer was on the lock, for he made little distinction
between Mr Chivery's politeness and that of the other turnkeys. It
was on one particular afternoon that Mr Chivery surprised him all
at once, and stood forth from his companions in bold relief.

Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the
Lodge, had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so
that Clennam, coming out of the prison, should find him on duty
alone.

'(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret
manner; 'but which way might you be going?'

'I am going over the Bridge.' He saw in Mr Chivery, with some
astonishment, quite an Allegory of Silence, as he stood with his
key on his lips.

'(Private) I ask your pardon