st as we were getting into the carriage, and
thought I'd take a stroll instead.'

Would he have tea or coffee? 'No, thank you,' said Mr Merdle. 'I looked
in at the Club, and got a bottle of wine.'

At this period of his visit, Mr Merdle took the chair which Edmund
Sparkler had offered him, and which he had hitherto been pushing slowly
about before him, like a dull man with a pair of skates on for the first
time, who could not make up his mind to start. He now put his hat upon
another chair beside him, and, looking down into it as if it were some
twenty feet deep, said again: 'You see I thought I'd give you a call.'

'Flattering to us,' said Fanny, 'for you are not a calling man.'

'No--no,' returned Mr Merdle, who was by this time taking himself into
custody under both coat-sleeves. 'No, I am not a calling man.'

'You have too much to do for that,' said Fanny. 'Having so much to do,
Mr Merdle, loss of appetite is a serious thing with you, and you must
have it seen to. You must not be ill.' 'Oh! I am very well,' replied Mr
Merdle, after deliberating about it. 'I am as well as I usually am. I am
well enough. I am as well as I want to be.'

The master-mind of the age, true to its characteristic of being at all
times a mind that had as little as possible to say for itself and great
difficulty in saying it, became mute again. Mrs Sparkler began to wonder
how long the master-mind meant to stay.

'I was speaking of poor papa when you came in, sir.'

'Aye! Quite a coincidence,' said Mr Merdle.

Fanny did not see that; but felt it incumbent on her to continue
talking. 'I was saying,' she pursued, 'that my brother's illness has
occasioned a delay in examining and arranging papa's property.'

'Yes,' said Mr Merdle; 'yes. There has been a delay.'

'Not that it is of consequence,' said Fanny.

'Not,' assented Mr Merdle, after having examined the cornice of all
that part of the room which was within his range: 'not that it is of any
consequence.'

'My only anxiety is,' said Fanny, 'that Mrs General should not get
anything.'

'She won't get anything,' said Mr Merdle.

Fanny was delighted to hear him express the opinion. Mr Merdle, after
taking another gaze into the depths of his hat as if he thought he saw
something at the bottom, rubbed his hair and slowly appended to his last
remark the confirmatory words, 'Oh dear no. No. Not she. Not likely.'

As the topic seemed exhausted, and Mr Merdle too, Fanny inquired if he