‘Be so good,’ said Jeremiah, closing the house door, and taking a pretty sharp survey of the smiling visitor in his turn, ‘as to step into my counting-house.—It’s all right, I tell you!’ petulantly breaking off to answer the voice up-stairs, still unsatisfied, though Affery was there, speaking in persuasive tones. ‘Don’t I tell you it’s all right? Preserve the woman, has she no reason at all in her!’
‘Timorous,’ remarked the stranger.
‘Timorous?’ said Mr Flintwinch, turning his head to retort, as he went before with the candle. ‘More courageous than ninety men in a hundred, sir, let me tell you.’
‘Though an invalid?’
‘Many years an invalid. Mrs Clennam. The only one of that name left in the House now. My partner.’
Saying something apologetically as he crossed the hall, to the effect that at that time of night they were not in the habit of receiving any one, and were always shut up, Mr Flintwinch led the way into his own office, which presented a sufficiently business-like appearance. Here he put the light on his desk, and said to the stranger, with his wryest twist upon him, ‘Your commands.’
‘My name is Blandois.’
‘Blandois. I don’t know it,’ said Jeremiah.
‘I thought it possible,’ resumed the other, ‘that you might have been advised from Paris—’
‘We have had no advice from Paris respecting anybody of the name of Blandois,’ said Jeremiah.