'A fresh night!' said Arthur. 'Yes, it's pretty fresh,' assented Pancks. 'As a stranger you feel the
climate more than I do, I dare say. Indeed I haven't got time to feel
it.' 'You lead such a busy life?' 'Yes, I have always some of 'em to look up, or something to look after.
But I like business,' said Pancks, getting on a little faster. 'What's a
man made for?' 'For nothing else?' said Clennam.
Pancks put the counter question, 'What else?' It packed up, in the
smallest compass, a weight that had rested on Clennam's life; and he
made no answer. 'That's what I ask our weekly tenants,' said Pancks. 'Some of 'em will
pull long faces to me, and say, Poor as you see us, master, we're always
grinding, drudging, toiling, every minute we're awake.
I say to them, What else are you made for? It shuts them up. They
haven't a word to answer. What else are you made for? That clinches it.' 'Ah dear, dear, dear!' sighed Clennam. 'Here am I,' said Pancks, pursuing his argument with the weekly tenant.
'What else do you suppose I think I am made for? Nothing. Rattle me out of bed early, set me going, give me as short a time as you
like to bolt my meals in, and keep me at it. Keep me always at it, and
I'll keep you always at it, you keep somebody else always at it. There
you are with the Whole Duty of Man in a commercial country.' When they had walked a little further in silence, Clennam said: 'Have
you no taste for anything, Mr Pancks?'
'What's taste?' drily retorted Pancks. 'Let us say inclination.' 'I have an inclination to get money, sir,' said Pancks, 'if you will
show me how.' He blew off that sound again, and it occurred to his
companion for the first time that it was his way of laughing. He was a
singular man in all respects; he might not have been quite in earnest,
but that the short, hard, rapid manner in which he shot out these
cinders of principles, as if it were done by mechanical revolvency,
seemed irreconcilable with banter. 'You are no great reader, I suppose?' said Clennam. 'Never read anything but letters and accounts. Never collect anything
but advertisements relative to next of kin. If that's a taste, I have
got that. You're not of the Clennams of Cornwall, Mr Clennam?'
'Not that I ever heard of.' 'I know you're not. I asked your mother,
sir. She has too much character to let a chance escape her.' 'Supposing I had been of the Clennams of Cornwall?' 'You'd have heard of
something to your advantage.' 'Indeed! I have heard of little enough to my advantage for some time.' 'There's a Cornish property going a begging, sir, and not a Cornish
Clennam to have it for the asking,' said Pancks, taking his note-book
from his breast pocket and putting it in again. 'I turn off here. I wish
you good night.' 'Good night!' said Clennam. But the Tug, suddenly lightened, and
untrammelled by having any weight in tow, was already puffing away into
the distance.