‘If they had—’ Clennam was going on to say; when Mr Pancks, without change of countenance, produced a sound so far surpassing all his usual efforts, nasal or bronchial, that he stopped.
‘If they had?’ repeated Pancks in an inquiring tone.
‘I thought you—spoke,’ said Arthur, hesitating what name to give the interruption.
‘Not at all,’ said Pancks. ‘Not yet. I may in a minute. If they had?’
‘If they had,’ observed Clennam, who was a little at a loss how to take his friend, ‘why, I suppose they would have known better.’
‘How so, Mr Clennam?’ Pancks asked quickly, and with an odd effect of having been from the commencement of the conversation loaded with the heavy charge he now fired off. ‘They’re right, you know. They don’t mean to be, but they’re right.’
‘Right in sharing Cavalletto’s inclination to speculate with Mr Merdle?’
‘Per-fectly, sir,’ said Pancks. ‘I’ve gone into it. I’ve made the calculations. I’ve worked it. They’re safe and genuine.’ Relieved by having got to this, Mr Pancks took as long a pull as his lungs would permit at his Eastern pipe, and looked sagaciously and steadily at Clennam while inhaling and exhaling too.
In those moments, Mr Pancks began to give out the dangerous infection with which he was laden. It is the manner of communicating these diseases; it is the subtle way in which they go about.
‘Do you mean, my good Pancks,’ asked Clennam emphatically, ‘that you would put that thousand pounds of yours, let us say, for instance, out at this kind of interest?’