ng to you.'

Just as the big ship in tow gets the credit, with most spectators, of
being the powerful object, so the Patriarch usually seemed to have said
himself whatever Pancks said for him.

'Indeed?' returned Clennam, upon whom this impression was so efficiently
made by a mere gleam of the polished head that he spoke the ship instead
of the Tug. 'The people are so poor there?'

'You can't say, you know,' snorted Pancks, taking one of his dirty hands
out of his rusty iron-grey pockets to bite his nails, if he could find
any, and turning his beads of eyes upon his employer, 'whether they're
poor or not. They say they are, but they all say that. When a man says
he's rich, you're generally sure he isn't. Besides, if they ARE poor,
you can't help it. You'd be poor yourself if you didn't get your rents.'

'True enough,' said Arthur.

'You're not going to keep open house for all the poor of London,'
pursued Pancks. 'You're not going to lodge 'em for nothing. You're not
going to open your gates wide and let 'em come free. Not if you know it,
you ain't.'

Mr Casby shook his head, in Placid and benignant generality.

'If a man takes a room of you at half-a-crown a week, and when the week
comes round hasn't got the half-crown, you say to that man, Why have you
got the room, then? If you haven't got the one thing, why have you got
the other? What have you been and done with your money? What do you mean
by it? What are you up to? That's what YOU say to a man of that sort;
and if you didn't say it, more shame for you!' Mr Pancks here made a
singular and startling noise, produced by a strong blowing effort in the
region of the nose, unattended by any result but that acoustic one.

'You have some extent of such property about the east and north-east
here, I believe?' said Clennam, doubtful which of the two to address.

'Oh, pretty well,' said Pancks. 'You're not particular to east or
north-east, any point of the compass will do for you. What you want is
a good investment and a quick return. You take it where you can find it.
You ain't nice as to situation--not you.'

There was a fourth and most original figure in the Patriarchal tent, who
also appeared before dinner. This was an amazing little old woman, with
a face like a staring wooden doll too cheap for expression, and a stiff
yellow wig perched unevenly on the top of her head, as if the child who
owned the doll had driven a tack through it anywhere, so that it only
g