this office to give me two or three thousand pounds instead of take it,
I couldn't have more trouble about it." "You are right, old fellow,"
I told him, "and in future you'll know that we have something to do
here."' The pleasant young Barnacle finished by once more laughing
heartily. He was a very easy, pleasant fellow indeed, and his manners
were exceedingly winning.

Mr Tite Barnacle's view of the business was of a less airy character. He
took it ill that Mr Dorrit had troubled the Department by wanting to
pay the money, and considered it a grossly informal thing to do after so
many years. But Mr Tite Barnacle was a buttoned-up man, and consequently
a weighty one. All buttoned-up men are weighty. All buttoned-up men are
believed in. Whether or no the reserved and never-exercised power of
unbuttoning, fascinates mankind; whether or no wisdom is supposed to
condense and augment when buttoned up, and to evaporate when unbuttoned;
it is certain that the man to whom importance is accorded is the
buttoned-up man. Mr Tite Barnacle never would have passed for half his
current value, unless his coat had been always buttoned-up to his white
cravat.

'May I ask,' said Lord Decimus, 'if Mr Darrit--or Dorrit--has any
family?'

Nobody else replying, the host said, 'He has two daughters, my lord.'

'Oh! you are acquainted with him?' asked Lord Decimus.

'Mrs Merdle is. Mr Sparkler is, too. In fact,' said Mr Merdle, 'I rather
believe that one of the young ladies has made an impression on Edmund
Sparkler. He is susceptible, and--I--think--the conquest--' Here Mr
Merdle stopped, and looked at the table-cloth, as he usually did when he
found himself observed or listened to.

Bar was uncommonly pleased to find that the Merdle family, and this
family, had already been brought into contact. He submitted, in a low
voice across the table to Bishop, that it was a kind of analogical
illustration of those physical laws, in virtue of which Like flies to
Like. He regarded this power of attraction in wealth to draw wealth
to it, as something remarkably interesting and curious--something
indefinably allied to the loadstone and gravitation. Bishop, who
had ambled back to earth again when the present theme was broached,
acquiesced. He said it was indeed highly important to Society that one
in the trying situation of unexpectedly finding himself invested with a
power for good or for evil in Society, should become, as it were, merged
in the sup