?'

'I am afraid,' said the stranger, 'I must be so troublesome as to
propose a candle.'

'True,' assented Jeremiah. 'I was going to do so. Please to stand where
you are while I get one.'

The visitor was standing in the doorway, but turned a little into the
gloom of the house as Mr Flintwinch turned, and pursued him with his
eyes into the little room, where he groped about for a phosphorus box.
When he found it, it was damp, or otherwise out of order; and match
after match that he struck into it lighted sufficiently to throw a dull
glare about his groping face, and to sprinkle his hands with pale little
spots of fire, but not sufficiently to light the candle. The stranger,
taking advantage of this fitful illumination of his visage, looked
intently and wonderingly at him. Jeremiah, when he at last lighted
the candle, knew he had been doing this, by seeing the last shade of
a lowering watchfulness clear away from his face, as it broke into the
doubtful smile that was a large ingredient in its expression.

'Be so good,' said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a pretty
sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, 'as to step into my
counting-house.--It's all right, I tell you!' petulantly breaking off to
answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there,
speaking in persuasive tones. 'Don't I tell you it's all right? Preserve
the woman, has she no reason at all in her!'

'Timorous,' remarked the stranger.

'Timorous?' said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went
before with the candle. 'More courageous than ninety men in a hundred,
sir, let me tell you.'

'Though an invalid?'

'Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name left
in the House now. My partner.' Saying something apologetically as he
crossed the hall, to the effect that at that time of night they were
not in the habit of receiving any one, and were always shut up,
Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own office, which presented a
sufficiently business-like appearance. Here he put the light on his
desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest twist upon him, 'Your
commands.'

'MY name is Blandois.'

'Blandois. I don't know it,' said Jeremiah.

'I thought it possible,' resumed the other, 'that you might have been
advised from Paris--'

'We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of
Blandois,' said Jeremiah.

'No?'

'No.'

Jeremiah stood in his favourite att