hat I am better
fitted for. I have perfect confidence in my partner, and I am satisfied
that he will do what is best. If I have a prejudice connected with money
and money figures,' continued Doyce, laying that plastic workman's thumb
of his on the lapel of his partner's coat, 'it is against speculating.
I don't think I have any other. I dare say I entertain that prejudice,
only because I have never given my mind fully to the subject.'

'But you shouldn't call it a prejudice,' said Clennam. 'My dear Doyce,
it is the soundest sense.'

'I am glad you think so,' returned Doyce, with his grey eye looking kind
and bright.

'It so happens,' said Clennam, 'that just now, not half an hour before
you came down, I was saying the same thing to Pancks, who looked in
here. We both agreed that to travel out of safe investments is one of
the most dangerous, as it is one of the most common, of those follies
which often deserve the name of vices.'

'Pancks?' said Doyce, tilting up his hat at the back, and nodding with
an air of confidence. 'Aye, aye, aye! That's a cautious fellow.'

'He is a very cautious fellow indeed,' returned Arthur. 'Quite a
specimen of caution.'

They both appeared to derive a larger amount of satisfaction from the
cautious character of Mr Pancks, than was quite intelligible, judged by
the surface of their conversation.

'And now,' said Daniel, looking at his watch, 'as time and tide wait
for no man, my trusty partner, and as I am ready for starting, bag and
baggage, at the gate below, let me say a last word. I want you to grant
a request of mine.'

'Any request you can make--Except,' Clennam was quick with his
exception, for his partner's face was quick in suggesting it, 'except
that I will abandon your invention.'

'That's the request, and you know it is,' said Doyce.

'I say, No, then. I say positively, No. Now that I have begun, I will
have some definite reason, some responsible statement, something in the
nature of a real answer, from those people.'

'You will not,' returned Doyce, shaking his head. 'Take my word for it,
you never will.'

'At least, I'll try,' said Clennam. 'It will do me no harm to try.'

'I am not certain of that,' rejoined Doyce, laying his hand persuasively
on his shoulder. 'It has done me harm, my friend. It has aged me, tired
me, vexed me, disappointed me. It does no man any good to have his
patience worn out, and to think himself ill-used. I fancy, even already,
that un