'If Mr Flintwinch would do me the favour to
take me through the rooms on my way out, he could hardly oblige me more.
An old house is a weakness with me. I have many weaknesses, but none
greater. I love and study the picturesque in all its varieties. I have
been called picturesque myself. It is no merit to be picturesque--I
have greater merits, perhaps--but I may be, by an accident. Sympathy,
sympathy!' 'I tell you beforehand, Mr Blandois, that you'll find it very dingy and
very bare,' said Jeremiah, taking up the candle. 'It's not worth your
looking at.'But Mr Blandois, smiting him in a friendly manner on the
back, only laughed; so the said Blandois kissed his hand again to Mrs
Clennam, and they went out of the room together.
'You don't care to go up-stairs?' said Jeremiah, on the landing. 'On the
contrary, Mr Flintwinch; if not tiresome to you, I shall be ravished!'
Mr Flintwinch, therefore, wormed himself up the staircase, and Mr
Blandois followed close. They ascended to the great garret bed-room
which Arthur had occupied on the night of his return. 'There, Mr
Blandois!' said Jeremiah, showing it, 'I hope you may think that worth
coming so high to see. I confess I don't.'
Mr Blandois being enraptured, they walked through other garrets and
passages, and came down the staircase again. By this time Mr Flintwinch
had remarked that he never found the visitor looking at any room, after
throwing one quick glance around, but always found the visitor looking
at him, Mr Flintwinch. With this discovery in his thoughts, he turned
about on the staircase for another experiment. He met his eyes directly;
and on the instant of their fixing one another, the visitor, with
that ugly play of nose and moustache, laughed (as he had done at every
similar moment since they left Mrs Clennam's chamber) a diabolically
silent laugh. As a much shorter man than the visitor, Mr Flintwinch was at the
physical disadvantage of being thus disagreeably leered at from a
height; and as he went first down the staircase, and was usually a
step or two lower than the other, this disadvantage was at the time
increased. He postponed looking at Mr Blandois again until this
accidental inequality was removed by their having entered the late Mr
Clennam's room. But, then twisting himself suddenly round upon him, he
found his look unchanged.
'A most admirable old house,' smiled Mr Blandois. 'So mysterious. Do you
never hear any haunted noises here?' 'Noises,' returned Mr Flintwinch. 'No.' '