dmirable mother vexed me.
To make variety in my position, and to amuse myself--what! a gentleman
must be amused at somebody's expense!--I conceived the happy idea of
disappearing. An idea, see you, that your characteristic mother and my
Flintwinch would have been well enough pleased to execute. Ah! Bah,
bah, bah, don't look as from high to low at me! I repeat it. Well enough
pleased, excessively enchanted, and with all their hearts ravished. How
strongly will you have it?'

He threw out the lees of his glass on the ground, so that they nearly
spattered Cavalletto. This seemed to draw his attention to him anew. He
set down his glass and said:

'I'll not fill it. What! I am born to be served. Come then, you
Cavalletto, and fill!'

The little man looked at Clennam, whose eyes were occupied with Rigaud,
and, seeing no prohibition, got up from the ground, and poured out
from the bottle into the glass. The blending, as he did so, of his old
submission with a sense of something humorous; the striving of that
with a certain smouldering ferocity, which might have flashed fire in
an instant (as the born gentleman seemed to think, for he had a wary
eye upon him); and the easy yielding of all to a good-natured, careless,
predominant propensity to sit down on the ground again: formed a very
remarkable combination of character.

'This happy idea, brave sir,' Rigaud resumed after drinking, 'was a
happy idea for several reasons. It amused me, it worried your dear
mama and my Flintwinch, it caused you agonies (my terms for a lesson
in politeness towards a gentleman), and it suggested to all the amiable
persons interested that your entirely devoted is a man to fear. By
Heaven, he is a man to fear! Beyond this; it might have restored her wit
to my lady your mother--might, under the pressing little suspicion your
wisdom has recognised, have persuaded her at last to announce, covertly,
in the journals, that the difficulties of a certain contract would be
removed by the appearance of a certain important party to it. Perhaps
yes, perhaps no. But that, you have interrupted. Now, what is it you
say? What is it you want?'

Never had Clennam felt more acutely that he was a prisoner in bonds,
than when he saw this man before him, and could not accompany him to his
mother's house. All the undiscernible difficulties and dangers he had
ever feared were closing in, when he could not stir hand or foot.

'Perhaps, my friend, philosopher, man of v