a part of my character--consent to accept them.
O yes! So goes the world. It is the mode.'

Though Clennam's back was turned while he spoke, and thenceforth to the
end of the interview, he kept those glittering eyes of his that were too
near together, upon him, and evidently saw in the very carriage of the
head, as he passed with his braggart recklessness from clause to clause
of what he said, that he was saying nothing which Clennam did not
already know.

'Whoof! The fair Gowana!' he said, lighting a third cigarette with a
sound as if his lightest breath could blow her away. 'Charming, but
imprudent! For it was not well of the fair Gowana to make mysteries of
letters from old lovers, in her bedchamber on the mountain, that her
husband might not see them. No, no. That was not well. Whoof! The Gowana
was mistaken there.'

'I earnestly hope,' cried Arthur aloud, 'that Pancks may not be long
gone, for this man's presence pollutes the room.'

'Ah! But he'll flourish here, and everywhere,' said Rigaud, with an
exulting look and snap of his fingers. 'He always has; he always will!'
Stretching his body out on the only three chairs in the room besides
that on which Clennam sat, he sang, smiting himself on the breast as the
gallant personage of the song.

'Who passes by this road so late?
Compagnon de la Majolaine!
Who passes by this road so late?
Always gay!

'Sing the Refrain, pig! You could sing it once, in another jail. Sing
it! Or, by every Saint who was stoned to death, I'll be affronted and
compromising; and then some people who are not dead yet, had better have
been stoned along with them!'

'Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Compagnon de la Majolaine!
Of all the king's knights 'tis the flower,
Always gay!'

Partly in his old habit of submission, partly because his not doing it
might injure his benefactor, and partly because he would as soon do
it as anything else, Cavalletto took up the Refrain this time. Rigaud
laughed, and fell to smoking with his eyes shut.

Possibly another quarter of an hour elapsed before Mr Pancks's step was
heard upon the stairs, but the interval seemed to Clennam insupportably
long. His step was attended by another step; and when Cavalletto opened
the door, he admitted Mr Pancks and Mr Flintwinch. The latter was no
sooner visible, than Rigaud rushed at him and embraced him boisterously.

'How do you fin