Chapter 30 - Page 2

do these people want here?'

'Who are these, dear madame, is it?' returned Rigaud. 'Faith, they
are friends of your son the prisoner. And what do they want here,
is it? Death, madame, I don't know. You will do well to ask
them.'

'You know you told us at the door, not to go yet,' said Pancks.

'And you know you told me at the door, you didn't mean to go,'
retorted Rigaud. 'In a word, madame, permit me to present two
spies of the prisoner's--madmen, but spies. If you wish them to
remain here during our little conversation, say the word. It is
nothing to me.'

'Why should I wish them to remain here?' said Mrs Clennam. 'What
have I to do with them?'

'Then, dearest madame,' said Rigaud, throwing himself into an arm-
chair so heavily that the old room trembled, 'you will do well to
dismiss them. It is your affair. They are not my spies, not my
rascals.'

'Hark! You Pancks,' said Mrs Clennam, bending her brows upon him
angrily, 'you Casby's clerk! Attend to your employer's business
and your own. Go. And take that other man with you.'
'Thank you, ma'am,' returned Mr Pancks, 'I am glad to say I see no
objection to our both retiring. We have done all we undertook to
do for Mr Clennam. His constant anxiety has been (and it grew
worse upon him when he became a prisoner), that this agreeable
gentleman should be brought back here to the place from which he
slipped away. Here he is--brought back. And I will say,' added Mr
Pancks, 'to his ill-looking face, that in my opinion the world
would be no worse for his slipping out of it altogether.'

'Your opinion is not asked,' answered Mrs Clennam. 'Go.'

'I am sorry not to leave you in better company, ma'am,' said
Pancks; 'and sorry, too, that Mr Clennam can't be present. It's my
fault, that is.'

'You mean his own,' she returned.

'No, I mean mine, ma'am,' said Pancks,'for it was my misfortune to
lead him into a ruinous investment.' (Mr Pancks still clung to
that word, and never said speculation.) 'Though I can prove by
figures,' added Mr Pancks, with an anxious countenance, 'that it
ought to have been a good investment. I have gone over it since it
failed, every day of my life, and it comes out--regarded as a
question of figures--triumphant. The present is not a time or
place,' Mr Pancks pursued, with a longing glance into his hat,
where he kept his calculations, 'for entering upon the figures; but
the figures are not to be disputed. Mr Clennam ought to have been
at this moment in his carriage and pair, and I ought to have been
worth from three to five thousand pound.'

Mr Pancks put his hair erect with a general aspect of confidence
that could hardly have been surpassed, if he had had the amount in