'I have not had so pleasant a greeting,' said Clennam--then he recalled
what Little Dorrit had said to him in his own room, and faithfully
added 'except once--since we last walked to and fro, looking down at the
Mediterranean.' 'Ah!' returned Mr Meagles. 'Something like a look out, that was, wasn't
it? I don't want a military government, but I shouldn't mind a little
allonging and marshonging--just a dash of it--in this neighbourhood
sometimes. It's Devilish still.'
Bestowing this eulogium on the retired character of his retreat with a
dubious shake of the head, Mr Meagles led the way into the house. It was
just large enough, and no more; was as pretty within as it was without,
and was perfectly well-arranged and comfortable.
Some traces of the migratory habits of the family were to be observed
in the covered frames and furniture, and wrapped-up hangings; but it was
easy to see that it was one of Mr Meagles's whims to have the cottage
always kept, in their absence, as if they were always coming back the
day after to-morrow. Of articles collected on his various expeditions,
there was such a vast miscellany that it was like the dwelling of an
amiable Corsair.
There were antiquities from Central Italy, made by the
best modern houses in that department of industry; bits of mummy from
Egypt (and perhaps Birmingham); model gondolas from Venice; model
villages from Switzerland; morsels of tesselated pavement from
Herculaneum and Pompeii, like petrified minced veal; ashes out of tombs,
and lava out of Vesuvius; Spanish fans, Spezzian straw hats, Moorish
slippers, Tuscan hairpins, Carrara sculpture, Trastaverini scarves,
Genoese velvets and filigree, Neapolitan coral, Roman cameos, Geneva
jewellery, Arab lanterns, rosaries blest all round by the Pope himself,
and an infinite variety of lumber.
There were views, like and unlike, of
a multitude of places; and there was one little picture-room devoted to
a few of the regular sticky old Saints, with sinews like whipcord, hair
like Neptune's, wrinkles like tattooing, and such coats of varnish
that every holy personage served for a fly-trap, and became what is
now called in the vulgar tongue a Catch-em-alive O. Of these pictorial
acquisitions Mr Meagles spoke in the usual manner. He was no judge, he
said, except of what pleased himself; he had picked them up, dirt-cheap,
and people had considered them rather fine. One man, who at any rate
ought to know something of the subject, had declared that 'Sage,
Reading' (a specially oily old gentleman in a blanket, with a
swan's-down tippet for a beard, and a web of cracks all over him like
rich pie-crust), to be a fine Guercino.