tearing
friends and neighbours to pieces, drowning men clinging to unseaworthy
spars and going down every minute, spent swimmers floating dead, and
sharks.

The usual diligence and order of the Counting-house at the Works were
overthrown. Unopened letters and unsorted papers lay strewn about the
desk. In the midst of these tokens of prostrated energy and dismissed
hope, the master of the Counting-house stood idle in his usual place,
with his arms crossed on the desk, and his head bowed down upon them.

Mr Pancks rushed in and saw him, and stood still. In another minute, Mr
Pancks's arms were on the desk, and Mr Pancks's head was bowed down
upon them; and for some time they remained in these attitudes, idle and
silent, with the width of the little room between them. Mr Pancks was
the first to lift up his head and speak.

'I persuaded you to it, Mr Clennam. I know it. Say what you will.

You can't say more to me than I say to myself. You can't say more than I
deserve.'

'O, Pancks, Pancks!' returned Clennam, 'don't speak of deserving. What
do I myself deserve!'

'Better luck,' said Pancks.

'I,' pursued Clennam, without attending to him, 'who have ruined my
partner! Pancks, Pancks, I have ruined Doyce! The honest, self-helpful,
indefatigable old man who has worked his way all through his life;
the man who has contended against so much disappointment, and who has
brought out of it such a good and hopeful nature; the man I have felt
so much for, and meant to be so true and useful to; I have ruined
him--brought him to shame and disgrace--ruined him, ruined him!'

The agony into which the reflection wrought his mind was so distressing
to see, that Mr Pancks took hold of himself by the hair of his head, and
tore it in desperation at the spectacle.

'Reproach me!' cried Pancks. 'Reproach me, sir, or I'll do myself an
injury. Say,--You fool, you villain. Say,--Ass, how could you do it;
Beast, what did you mean by it! Catch hold of me somewhere.

Say something abusive to me!' All the time, Mr Pancks was tearing at his
tough hair in a most pitiless and cruel manner.

'If you had never yielded to this fatal mania, Pancks,' said Clennam,
more in commiseration than retaliation, 'it would have been how much
better for you, and how much better for me!'

'At me again, sir!' cried Pancks, grinding his teeth in remorse. 'At
me again!' 'If you had never gone into those accursed calculations,
and brought out your results wit