s put into his head to be made
useful. You hold your life on the condition that to the last you shall struggle
hard for it. Every man holds a discovery on the same terms.«
    »This is to say,« said Arthur, with a growing admiration of his quiet
companion, »you are not finally discouraged even now?«
    »I have no right to be, if I am,« returned the other. »The thing is as true
as it ever was.«
    When they had walked a little way in silence, Clennam, at once to change the
direct point of their conversation and not to change it too abruptly, asked Mr.
Doyce if he had any partner in his business, to relieve him of a portion of its
anxieties?
    »No,« he returned, »not at present. I had when I first entered on it, and a
good man he was. But he has been dead some years; and as I could not easily take
to the notion of another when I lost him, I bought his share for myself and have
gone on by myself ever since. And here's another thing,« he said, stopping for a
moment with a good-humoured laugh in his eyes, and laying his closed right hand,
with its peculiar suppleness of thumb, on Clennam's arm, »no inventor can be a
man of business, you know.«
    »No?« said Clennam.
    »Why, so the men of business say,« he answered, resuming the walk and
laughing outright. »I don't know why we unfortunate creatures should be supposed
to want common sense, but it is generally taken for granted that we do. Even the
best friend I have in the world, our excellent friend over yonder,« said Doyce,
nodding towards Twickenham, »extends a sort of protection to me, don't you know,
as a man not quite able to take care of himself.«
    Arthur Clennam could not help joining in the good-humoured laugh, for he
recognised the truth of the description.
    »So I find that I must have a partner who is a man of business and not
guilty of any inventions,« said Daniel Doyce, taking off his hat to pass his
hand over his forehead, »if it's only in deference to the current opinion, and
to uphold the credit of the Works. I don't think he'll find that I have been
very remiss or confused in my way of conducting them; but that's for him
