Chapter 35 - Page 2

that his discovery had but to be ripened to legal fulness and
perfection. How he had, thereupon, sworn his landlord, Mr Rugg, to
secrecy in a solemn manner, and taken him into Moleing partnership.

How they had employed John Chivery as their sole clerk and agent,
seeing to whom he was devoted. And how, until the present hour,
when authorities mighty in the Bank and learned in the law declared
their successful labours ended, they had confided in no other human
being.

'So if the whole thing had broken down, sir,' concluded Pancks, 'at
the very last, say the day before the other day when I showed you
our papers in the Prison yard, or say that very day, nobody but
ourselves would have been cruelly disappointed, or a penny the
worse.'

Clennam, who had been almost incessantly shaking hands with him
throughout the narrative, was reminded by this to say, in an
amazement which even the preparation he had had for the main
disclosure smoothed down, 'My dear Mr Pancks, this must have cost
you a great sum of money.'

'Pretty well, sir,' said the triumphant Pancks. 'No trifle, though
we did it as cheap as it could be done. And the outlay was a
difficulty, let me tell you.'

'A difficulty!' repeated Clennam. 'But the difficulties you have
so wonderfully conquered in the whole business!' shaking his hand
again.

'I'll tell you how I did it,' said the delighted Pancks, putting
his hair into a condition as elevated as himself. 'First, I spent
all I had of my own. That wasn't much.'

'I am sorry for it,' said Clennam: 'not that it matters now,
though. Then, what did you do?'

'Then,' answered Pancks, 'I borrowed a sum of my proprietor.'

'Of Mr Casby?' said Clennam. 'He's a fine old fellow.'

'Noble old boy; an't he?' said Mr Pancks, entering on a series of
the dryest snorts. 'Generous old buck. Confiding old boy.
Philanthropic old buck. Benevolent old boy! Twenty per cent. I
engaged to pay him, sir. But we never do business for less at our
shop.'

Arthur felt an awkward consciousness of having, in his exultant
condition, been a little premature.

'I said to that boiling-over old Christian,' Mr Pancks pursued,
appearing greatly to relish this descriptive epithet, 'that I had
got a little project on hand; a hopeful one; I told him a hopeful
one; which wanted a certain small capital. I proposed to him to
lend me the money on my note. Which he did, at twenty; sticking
the twenty on in a business-like way, and putting it into the note,
to look like a part of the principal. If I had broken down after
that, I should have been his grubber for the next seven years at
half wages and double grind. But he's a perfect Patriarch; and it
would do a