‘Ha. Very handsome, indeed!’ cried Mr Dorrit. ‘Ha. Most handsome!’
‘It would not,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘be at the present moment easy for what I may call a mere outsider to come into any of the good things—of course I speak of my own good things—’
‘Of course, of course!’ cried Mr Dorrit, in a tone implying that there were no other good things.
‘—Unless at a high price. At what we are accustomed to term a very long figure.’
Mr Dorrit laughed in the buoyancy of his spirit. Ha, ha, ha! Long figure. Good. Ha. Very expressive to be sure!
‘However,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘I do generally retain in my own hands the power of exercising some preference—people in general would be pleased to call it favour—as a sort of compliment for my care and trouble.’
‘And public spirit and genius,’ Mr Dorrit suggested.
Mr Merdle, with a dry, swallowing action, seemed to dispose of those qualities like a bolus; then added, ‘As a sort of return for it. I will see, if you please, how I can exert this limited power (for people are jealous, and it is limited), to your advantage.’
‘You are very good,’ replied Mr Dorrit. ‘You are very good.’
‘Of course,’ said Mr Merdle, ‘there must be the strictest integrity and uprightness in these transactions; there must be the purest faith between man and man; there must be unimpeached and unimpeachable confidence; or business could not be carried on.’