Barnacle was in the last
degree amazed and disconcerted at sight of Arthur, and had murmured
involuntarily, 'Look here! upon my soul, you know!' before his presence
of mind returned.

Even then, he was obliged to embrace the earliest opportunity of taking
his friend into a window, and saying, in a nasal way that was a part of
his general debility:

'I want to speak to you, Gowan. I say. Look here. Who is that fellow?'

'A friend of our host's. None of mine.'

'He's a most ferocious Radical, you know,' said Young Barnacle.

'Is he? How do you know?'

'Ecod, sir, he was Pitching into our people the other day in the most
tremendous manner. Went up to our place and Pitched into my father to
that extent that it was necessary to order him out. Came back to
our Department, and Pitched into me. Look here. You never saw such a
fellow.'

'What did he want?'

'Ecod, sir,' returned Young Barnacle, 'he said he wanted to know, you
know! Pervaded our Department--without an appointment--and said he
wanted to know!'

The stare of indignant wonder with which Young Barnacle accompanied
this disclosure, would have strained his eyes injuriously but for
the opportune relief of dinner. Mr Meagles (who had been extremely
solicitous to know how his uncle and aunt were) begged him to conduct
Mrs Meagles to the dining-room. And when he sat on Mrs Meagles's right
hand, Mr Meagles looked as gratified as if his whole family were there.

All the natural charm of the previous day was gone. The eaters of the
dinner, like the dinner itself, were lukewarm, insipid, overdone--and
all owing to this poor little dull Young Barnacle. Conversationless at
any time, he was now the victim of a weakness special to the occasion,
and solely referable to Clennam. He was under a pressing and continual
necessity of looking at that gentleman, which occasioned his eye-glass
to get into his soup, into his wine-glass, into Mrs Meagles's plate, to
hang down his back like a bell-rope, and be several times disgracefully
restored to his bosom by one of the dingy men. Weakened in mind by his
frequent losses of this instrument, and its determination not to stick
in his eye, and more and more enfeebled in intellect every time he
looked at the mysterious Clennam, he applied spoons to his eyes,
forks, and other foreign matters connected with the furniture of the
dinner-table. His discovery of these mistakes greatly increased his
difficulties, but never released him fro