cocious contemplation by the spire of a
village church. There was the same smooth face and forehead, the same
calm blue eye, the same placid air. The shining bald head, which looked
so very large because it shone so much; and the long grey hair at its
sides and back, like floss silk or spun glass, which looked so very
benevolent because it was never cut; were not, of course, to be seen in
the boy as in the old man. Nevertheless, in the Seraphic creature with
the haymaking rake, were clearly to be discerned the rudiments of the
Patriarch with the list shoes.

Patriarch was the name which many people delighted to give him.
Various old ladies in the neighbourhood spoke of him as The Last of the
Patriarchs. So grey, so slow, so quiet, so impassionate, so very bumpy
in the head, Patriarch was the word for him. He had been accosted in the
streets, and respectfully solicited to become a Patriarch for painters
and for sculptors; with so much importunity, in sooth, that it would
appear to be beyond the Fine Arts to remember the points of a Patriarch,
or to invent one. Philanthropists of both sexes had asked who he was,
and on being informed, 'Old Christopher Casby, formerly Town-agent to
Lord Decimus Tite Barnacle,' had cried in a rapture of disappointment,
'Oh! why, with that head, is he not a benefactor to his species! Oh!
why, with that head, is he not a father to the orphan and a friend to
the friendless!' With that head, however, he remained old Christopher
Casby, proclaimed by common report rich in house property; and with that
head, he now sat in his silent parlour. Indeed it would be the height of
unreason to expect him to be sitting there without that head.

Arthur Clennam moved to attract his attention, and the grey eyebrows
turned towards him.

'I beg your pardon,' said Clennam, 'I fear you did not hear me
announced?'

'No, sir, I did not. Did you wish to see me, sir?'

'I wished to pay my respects.'

Mr Casby seemed a feather's weight disappointed by the last words,
having perhaps prepared himself for the visitor's wishing to pay
something else. 'Have I the pleasure, sir,' he proceeded--'take a chair,
if you please--have I the pleasure of knowing--? Ah! truly, yes, I think
I have! I believe I am not mistaken in supposing that I am acquainted
with those features? I think I address a gentleman of whose return to
this country I was informed by Mr Flintwinch?'

'That is your present visitor.'

'Really! Mr Clenn