e always
plain and directed straight to the purpose. It occurred to Arthur that
a far more elaborate and taking show of business--such as the records of
the Circumlocution Office made perhaps--might be far less serviceable,
as being meant to be far less intelligible.

Three or four days of steady application tendered him master of all the
facts it was essential to become acquainted with. Mr Meagles was at hand
the whole time, always ready to illuminate any dim place with the bright
little safety-lamp belonging to the scales and scoop. Between them they
agreed upon the sum it would be fair to offer for the purchase of a
half-share in the business, and then Mr Meagles unsealed a paper in
which Daniel Doyce had noted the amount at which he valued it; which was
even something less. Thus, when Daniel came back, he found the affair as
good as concluded.

'And I may now avow, Mr Clennam,' said he, with a cordial shake of the
hand, 'that if I had looked high and low for a partner, I believe I
could not have found one more to my mind.'

'I say the same,' said Clennam.

'And I say of both of you,' added Mr Meagles, 'that you are well
matched. You keep him in check, Clennam, with your common sense, and you
stick to the Works, Dan, with your--'

'Uncommon sense?' suggested Daniel, with his quiet smile.

'You may call it so, if you like--and each of you will be a right hand
to the other. Here's my own right hand upon it, as a practical man, to
both of you.'

The purchase was completed within a month. It left Arthur in possession
of private personal means not exceeding a few hundred pounds; but it
opened to him an active and promising career. The three friends dined
together on the auspicious occasion; the factory and the factory wives
and children made holiday and dined too; even Bleeding Heart Yard
dined and was full of meat. Two months had barely gone by in all, when
Bleeding Heart Yard had become so familiar with short-commons again,
that the treat was forgotten there; when nothing seemed new in the
partnership but the paint of the inscription on the door-posts, DOYCE
AND CLENNAM; when it appeared even to Clennam himself, that he had had
the affairs of the firm in his mind for years.

The little counting-house reserved for his own occupation, was a room of
wood and glass at the end of a long low workshop, filled with benches,
and vices, and tools, and straps, and wheels; which, when they were
in gear with the steam-engi