Mr Clennam did not increase in favour with the Father of the Marshalsea
in the ratio of his increasing visits. His obtuseness on the great
Testimonial question was not calculated to awaken admiration in the
paternal breast, but had rather a tendency to give offence in that
sensitive quarter, and to be regarded as a positive shortcoming in point
of gentlemanly feeling. An impression of disappointment, occasioned
by the discovery that Mr Clennam scarcely possessed that delicacy for
which, in the confidence of his nature, he had been inclined to give
him credit, began to darken the fatherly mind in connection with that
gentleman. The father went so far as to say, in his private family
circle, that he feared Mr Clennam was not a man of high instincts.
He was happy, he observed, in his public capacity as leader and
representative of the College, to receive Mr Clennam when he called to
pay his respects; but he didn't find that he got on with him personally.
There appeared to be something (he didn't know what it was) wanting in
him.
Howbeit, the father did not fail in any outward show of politeness,
but, on the contrary, honoured him with much attention; perhaps
cherishing the hope that, although not a man of a sufficiently
brilliant and spontaneous turn of mind to repeat his former testimonial
unsolicited, it might still be within the compass of his nature to
bear the part of a responsive gentleman, in any correspondence that way
tending. In the threefold capacity, of the gentleman from outside who had been
accidentally locked in on the night of his first appearance, of the
gentleman from outside who had inquired into the affairs of the Father
of the Marshalsea with the stupendous idea of getting him out, and of
the gentleman from outside who took an interest in the child of the
Marshalsea, Clennam soon became a visitor of mark.
He was not surprised by the attentions he received from Mr Chivery when
that officer was on the lock, for he made little distinction between
Mr Chivery's politeness and that of the other turnkeys. It was on one
particular afternoon that Mr Chivery surprised him all at once, and
stood forth from his companions in bold relief.
Mr Chivery, by some artful exercise of his power of clearing the Lodge,
had contrived to rid it of all sauntering Collegians; so that Clennam,
coming out of the prison, should find him on duty alone.
'(Private) I ask your pardon, sir,' said Mr Chivery in a secret manner;
'but which way might you be going?' 'I am going over the Bridge.'