'It ain't many that comes into a poor place, that deems it worth their
while to move their hats,' said Mrs Plornish. 'But people think more of
it than people think.' Clennam returned, with an uncomfortable feeling in so very slight a
courtesy being unusual, Was that all! And stooping down to pinch the
cheek of another young child who was sitting on the floor, staring at
him, asked Mrs Plornish how old that fine boy was?
'Four year just turned, sir,' said Mrs Plornish. 'He IS a fine little
fellow, ain't he, sir? But this one is rather sickly.' She tenderly
hushed the baby in her arms, as she said it. 'You wouldn't mind my
asking if it happened to be a job as you was come about, sir, would
you?' asked Mrs Plornish wistfully.
She asked it so anxiously, that if he had been in possession of any
kind of tenement, he would have had it plastered a foot deep rather
than answer No. But he was obliged to answer No; and he saw a shade of
disappointment on her face, as she checked a sigh, and looked at the
low fire. Then he saw, also, that Mrs Plornish was a young woman, made
somewhat slatternly in herself and her belongings by poverty; and so
dragged at by poverty and the children together, that their united
forces had already dragged her face into wrinkles.
'All such things as jobs,' said Mrs Plornish, 'seems to me to have gone
underground, they do indeed.' (Herein Mrs Plornish limited her remark to
the plastering trade, and spoke without reference to the Circumlocution
Office and the Barnacle Family.) 'Is it so difficult to get work?' asked Arthur Clennam.
'Plornish finds it so,' she returned. 'He is quite unfortunate. Really
he is.' Really he was. He was one of those many wayfarers on the road
of life, who seem to be afflicted with supernatural corns, rendering it
impossible for them to keep up even with their lame competitors.
A willing, working, soft hearted, not hard-headed fellow, Plornish took
his fortune as smoothly as could be expected; but it was a rough one.
It so rarely happened that anybody seemed to want him, it was such an
exceptional case when his powers were in any request, that his misty
mind could not make out how it happened. He took it as it came,
therefore; he tumbled into all kinds of difficulties, and tumbled out of
them; and, by tumbling through life, got himself considerably bruised.
'It's not for want of looking after jobs, I am sure,' said Mrs Plornish,
lifting up her eyebrows, and searching for a solution of the problem
between the bars of the grate; 'nor yet for want of working at them when
they are to be got. No one ever heard my husband complain of work.'