 day, and the day after, and every day, all graced by more dinner
company, cards descended on Mr. Dorrit like theatrical snow. As the friend and
relative by marriage of the illustrious Merdle, Bar, Bishop, Treasury, Chorus,
Everybody, wanted to make or improve Mr. Dorrit's acquaintance. In Mr. Merdle's
heaps of offices in the City, when Mr. Dorrit appeared at any of them on his
business taking him Eastward (which it frequently did, for it throve amazingly),
the name of Dorrit was always a passport to the great presence of Merdle. So the
dream increased in rapture every hour, as Mr. Dorrit felt increasingly sensible
that this connection had brought him forward indeed.
    Only one thing sat otherwise than auriferously, and at the same time
lightly, on Mr. Dorrit's mind. It was the Chief Butler. That stupendous
character looked at him, in the course of his official looking at the dinners,
in a manner that Mr. Dorrit considered questionable. He looked at him, as he
passed through the hall and up the staircase, going to dinner, with a glazed
fixedness that Mr. Dorrit did not like. Seated at table in the act of drinking,
Mr. Dorrit still saw him through his wine-glass, regarding him with a cold and
ghostly eye. It misgave him that the Chief Butler must have known a Collegian,
and must have seen him in the College - perhaps had been presented to him. He
looked as closely at the Chief Butler as such a man could be looked at, and yet
he did not recall that he had ever seen him elsewhere. Ultimately he was
inclined to think that there was no reverence in the man, no sentiment in the
great creature. But, he was not relieved by that; for, let him think what he
would, the Chief Butler had him in his supercilious eye, even when that eye was
on the plate and other table-garniture; and he never let him out of it. To hint
to him that this confinement in his eye was disagreeable, or to ask him what he
meant, was an act too daring to venture upon; his severity with his employers
and their visitors being terrific, and he never permitting himself to be
approached with the slightest liberty.
 

                                  Chapter XVII

                                    Missing.

The term of Mr. Dorrit's visit was within two days of being out, and he was
about to dress for another inspection by the Chief Butler (whose victims were
always dressed expressly for him), when one of the servants of the
