Charles Dickens

“ It’s no satisfaction to be done by two men instead of one. One’s enough. A person who can’t pay, gets another person who can’t pay, to guarantee that he can pay. Like a person with two wooden legs getting another person with two wooden legs, to guarantee that he has got two natural legs. It don’t make either of them able to do a walking match. And four wooden legs are more troublesome to you than two, when you don’t want any.’ Mr Pancks concluded by blowing off that steam of his. ”

“ You do take a reference sometimes, I see?’ said Clennam.
‘When he can pay, sir,’ replied Pancks. ‘Take all you can get, and keep back all you can’t be forced to give up. That’s business. The lame foreigner with the stick wants a top room down the Yard. Is he good for it?’
‘I am,’ said Clennam, ‘and I will answer for him.’
‘That’s enough. What I must have of Bleeding Heart Yard,’ said Pancks, making a note of the case in his book, ‘is my bond. I want my bond, you see. Pay up, or produce your property! That’s the watchword down the Yard. ”

“ By this time he had placed chairs for them in the counting-house. As Flora dropped into hers, she bestowed the old look upon him.
‘And to think of Doyce and Clennam, and who Doyce can be,’ said Flora; ‘delightful man no doubt and married perhaps or perhaps a daughter, now has he really? ”

“ But I have an interest in the little creature, and a respect for her that I cannot express to you. Her life has been one of such trial and devotion, and such quiet goodness, as you can scarcely imagine. ”

“ Therefore Flora said, though still not without a certain boastfulness and triumph in her legacy, that Mr F.’s Aunt was ‘very lively to-day, and she thought they had better go.’ But Mr F.’s Aunt proved so lively as to take the suggestion in unexpected dudgeon and declare that she would not go; adding, with several injurious expressions, that if ‘He’—too evidently meaning Clennam—wanted to get rid of her, ‘let him chuck her out of winder;’ and urgently expressing her desire to see ‘Him’ perform that ceremony.
In this dilemma, Mr Pancks, whose resources appeared equal to any emergency in the Patriarchal waters, slipped on his hat, slipped out at the counting-house door, and slipped in again a moment afterwards with an artificial freshness upon him, as if he had been in the country for some weeks. ”

“ It seemed worth putting down among the noblest sentiments enunciated by the best of men. Also, when he said to Clennam, seating himself in the proffered chair, ‘And you are in a new business, Mr Clennam? I wish you well, sir, I wish you well!’ he seemed to have done benevolent wonders.
‘Mrs Finching has been telling me, sir,’ said Arthur, after making his acknowledgments; the relict of the late Mr F. meanwhile protesting, with a gesture, against his use of that respectable name; ‘that she hopes occasionally to employ the young needle-woman you recommended to my mother. ”

“ Let me ask two questions. First——’
‘All right!’ said Pancks, holding up his dirty forefinger with his broken nail. ‘I see! “What’s your motive?”’
‘Exactly.’
‘Motive,’ said Pancks, ‘good. Nothing to do with my proprietor; not statable at present, ridiculous to state at present; but good.
Desiring to serve young person, name of Dorrit,’ said Pancks, with his forefinger still up as a caution. ”