quaintance in my mother's room, Mr
Flintwinch,' said Clennam, 'with a great deal of surprise and a great
deal of unwillingness.'

The person referred to snapped his finger and thumb again.

'Good night, mother.'

'Good night.'

'I had a friend once, my good comrade Flintwinch,' said Blandois,
standing astride before the fire, and so evidently saying it to arrest
Clennam's retreating steps, that he lingered near the door; 'I had a
friend once, who had heard so much of the dark side of this city and
its ways, that he wouldn't have confided himself alone by night with two
people who had an interest in getting him under the ground--my faith!
not even in a respectable house like this--unless he was bodily too
strong for them. Bah! What a poltroon, my Flintwinch! Eh?'

'A cur, sir.'

'Agreed! A cur. But he wouldn't have done it, my Flintwinch, unless he
had known them to have the will to silence him, without the power. He
wouldn't have drunk from a glass of water under such circumstances--not
even in a respectable house like this, my Flintwinch--unless he had seen
one of them drink first, and swallow too!'

Disdaining to speak, and indeed not very well able, for he was
half-choking, Clennam only glanced at the visitor as he passed out.

The visitor saluted him with another parting snap, and his nose came
down over his moustache and his moustache went up under his nose, in an
ominous and ugly smile.

'For Heaven's sake, Affery,' whispered Clennam, as she opened the door
for him in the dark hall, and he groped his way to the sight of the
night-sky, 'what is going on here?'

Her own appearance was sufficiently ghastly, standing in the dark
with her apron thrown over her head, and speaking behind it in a low,
deadened voice.

'Don't ask me anything, Arthur. I've been in a dream for ever so long.
Go away!'

He went out, and she shut the door upon him. He looked up at the windows
of his mother's room, and the dim light, deadened by the yellow blinds,
seemed to say a response after Affery, and to mutter, 'Don't ask me
anything. Go away!'

CHAPTER 11. A Letter from Little Dorrit

Dear Mr Clennam,

As I said in my last that it was best for nobody to write to me, and
as my sending you another little letter can therefore give you no other
trouble than the trouble of reading it (perhaps you may not find leisure
for even that, though I hope you will some day), I am now going to
devote an hour to writing to you