ll that.

Whereas, the Sparkler question was on the different footing that any one
could see what was going on there, and Little Dorrit saw it and pondered
on it with many doubts and wonderings.

The devotion of Mr Sparkler was only to be equalled by the caprice
and cruelty of his enslaver. Sometimes she would prefer him to such
distinction of notice, that he would chuckle aloud with joy; next day,
or next hour, she would overlook him so completely, and drop him into
such an abyss of obscurity, that he would groan under a weak pretence of
coughing. The constancy of his attendance never touched Fanny: though he
was so inseparable from Edward, that, when that gentleman wished for
a change of society, he was under the irksome necessity of gliding out
like a conspirator in disguised boats and by secret doors and back ways;
though he was so solicitous to know how Mr Dorrit was, that he called
every other day to inquire, as if Mr Dorrit were the prey of an
intermittent fever; though he was so constantly being paddled up and
down before the principal windows, that he might have been supposed to
have made a wager for a large stake to be paddled a thousand miles in
a thousand hours; though whenever the gondola of his mistress left the
gate, the gondola of Mr Sparkler shot out from some watery ambush
and gave chase, as if she were a fair smuggler and he a custom-house
officer. It was probably owing to this fortification of the natural
strength of his constitution with so much exposure to the air, and the
salt sea, that Mr Sparkler did not pine outwardly; but, whatever the
cause, he was so far from having any prospect of moving his mistress by
a languishing state of health, that he grew bluffer every day, and that
peculiarity in his appearance of seeming rather a swelled boy than
a young man, became developed to an extraordinary degree of ruddy
puffiness.

Blandois calling to pay his respects, Mr Dorrit received him with
affability as the friend of Mr Gowan, and mentioned to him his idea of
commissioning Mr Gowan to transmit him to posterity. Blandois highly
extolling it, it occurred to Mr Dorrit that it might be agreeable to
Blandois to communicate to his friend the great opportunity reserved
for him. Blandois accepted the commission with his own free elegance of
manner, and swore he would discharge it before he was an hour older. On
his imparting the news to Gowan, that Master gave Mr Dorrit to the
Devil with great liberality