at land, still it is a long way off.
just as Home is Home though it's never so Homely, why you see,' said Mr
Meagles, adding a new version to the proverb, 'Rome is Rome, though it's
never so Romely.'

'All perfectly true,' observed Arthur, 'and all sufficient reasons for
going.'

'I am glad you think so; it decides me. Mother, my dear, you may get
ready. We have lost our pleasant interpreter (she spoke three foreign
languages beautifully, Arthur; you have heard her many a time), and you
must pull me through it, Mother, as well as you can.

I require a deal of pulling through, Arthur,' said Mr Meagles, shaking
his head, 'a deal of pulling through. I stick at everything beyond a
noun-substantive--and I stick at him, if he's at all a tight one.'

'Now I think of it,' returned Clennam, 'there's Cavalletto. He shall
go with you, if you like. I could not afford to lose him, but you will
bring him safe back.'

'Well! I am much obliged to you, my boy,' said Mr Meagles, turning it
over, 'but I think not. No, I think I'll be pulled through by Mother.
Cavallooro (I stick at his very name to start with, and it sounds like
the chorus to a comic song) is so necessary to you, that I don't like
the thought of taking him away. More than that, there's no saying when
we may come home again; and it would never do to take him away for
an indefinite time. The cottage is not what it was. It only holds two
little people less than it ever did, Pet, and her poor unfortunate maid
Tattycoram; but it seems empty now. Once out of it, there's no knowing
when we may come back to it. No, Arthur, I'll be pulled through by
Mother.'

They would do best by themselves perhaps, after all, Clennam thought;
therefore did not press his proposal.

'If you would come down and stay here for a change, when it wouldn't
trouble you,' Mr Meagles resumed, 'I should be glad to think--and so
would Mother too, I know--that you were brightening up the old place
with a bit of life it was used to when it was full, and that the Babies
on the wall there had a kind eye upon them sometimes. You so belong to
the spot, and to them, Arthur, and we should every one of us have been
so happy if it had fallen out--but, let us see--how's the weather for
travelling now?' Mr Meagles broke off, cleared his throat, and got up to
look out of the window.

They agreed that the weather was of high promise; and Clennam kept the
talk in that safe direction until it had become easy again