er with his fists clenched, and his elbows quivering with
impatience to shake her, 'you are at your old tricks. You'll be walking
in your sleep next, my woman, and playing the whole round of your
distempered antics. You must have some physic. When I have shown this
gentleman out, I'll make you up such a comfortable dose, my woman; such
a comfortable dose!'

It did not appear altogether comfortable in expectation to Mistress
Affery; but Jeremiah, without further reference to his healing medicine,
took another candle from Mrs Clennam's table, and said, 'Now, sir; shall
I light you down?'

Mr Dorrit professed himself obliged, and went down. Mr Flintwinch shut
him out, and chained him out, without a moment's loss of time.

He was again passed by the two men, one going out and the other coming
in; got into the vehicle he had left waiting, and was driven away.

Before he had gone far, the driver stopped to let him know that he
had given his name, number, and address to the two men, on their joint
requisition; and also the address at which he had taken Mr Dorrit up,
the hour at which he had been called from his stand and the way by which
he had come. This did not make the night's adventure run any less hotly
in Mr Dorrit's mind, either when he sat down by his fire again, or
when he went to bed. All night he haunted the dismal house, saw the two
people resolutely waiting, heard the woman with her apron over her face
cry out about the noise, and found the body of the missing Blandois, now
buried in the cellar, and now bricked up in a wall.

CHAPTER 18. A Castle in the Air

Manifold are the cares of wealth and state. Mr Dorrit's satisfaction in
remembering that it had not been necessary for him to announce himself
to Clennam and Co., or to make an allusion to his having had any
knowledge of the intrusive person of that name, had been damped
over-night, while it was still fresh, by a debate that arose within him
whether or no he should take the Marshalsea in his way back, and look
at the old gate. He had decided not to do so; and had astonished the
coachman by being very fierce with him for proposing to go over London
Bridge and recross the river by Waterloo Bridge--a course which would
have taken him almost within sight of his old quarters. Still, for all
that, the question had raised a conflict in his breast; and, for some
odd reason or no reason, he was vaguely dissatisfied. Even at the Merdle
dinner-table next da