The smoke came crookedly out of Mr Flintwinch’s mouth, as if it circulated through the whole of his wry figure and came back by his wry throat, before coming forth to mingle with the smoke from the crooked chimneys and the mists from the crooked river.
‘Have you any news?’ said Arthur.
‘We have no news,’ said Jeremiah.
‘I mean of the foreign man,’ Arthur explained.
‘I mean of the foreign man,’ said Jeremiah.
He looked so grim, as he stood askew, with the knot of his cravat under his ear, that the thought passed into Clennam’s mind, and not for the first time by many, could Flintwinch for a purpose of his own have got rid of Blandois? Could it have been his secret, and his safety, that were at issue? He was small and bent, and perhaps not actively strong; yet he was as tough as an old yew-tree, and as crusty as an old jackdaw. Such a man, coming behind a much younger and more vigorous man, and having the will to put an end to him and no relenting, might do it pretty surely in that solitary place at a late hour.
While, in the morbid condition of his thoughts, these thoughts drifted over the main one that was always in Clennam’s mind, Mr Flintwinch, regarding the opposite house over the gateway with his neck twisted and one eye shut up, stood smoking with a vicious expression upon him; more as if he were trying to bite off the stem of his pipe, than as if he were enjoying it. Yet he was enjoying it in his own way.
‘You’ll be able to take my likeness, the next time you call, Arthur, I should think,’ said Mr Flintwinch, drily, as he stooped to knock the ashes out.
Rather conscious and confused, Arthur asked his pardon, if he had stared at him unpolitely. ‘But my mind runs so much upon this matter,’ he said, ‘that I lose myself.’
‘Hah! Yet I don’t see,’ returned Mr Flintwinch, quite at his leisure, ‘why it should trouble you, Arthur.’