.« It was really a disconcerting question, with the
man there.
    »No. You would not. I know you would not. You wouldn't suppose him to be a
public offender; would you?«
    »No.«
    »No. But he is. He is a public offender. What has he been guilty of? Murder,
manslaughter, arson, forgery, swindling, housebreaking, highway robbery,
larceny, conspiracy, fraud? Which should you say, now?«
    »I should say,« returned Arthur Clennam, observing a faint smile in Daniel
Doyce's face, »not one of them.«
    »You are right,« said Mr. Meagles. »But he has been ingenious, and he has
been trying to turn his ingenuity to his country's service. That makes him a
public offender directly, sir.«
    Arthur looked at the man himself, who only shook his head.
    »This Doyce,« said Mr. Meagles, »is a smith and engineer. He is not in a
large way, but he is well known as a very ingenious man. A dozen years ago, he
perfects an invention (involving a very curious secret process) of great
importance to his country and his fellow-creatures. I won't say how much money
it cost him, or how many years of his life he had been about it, but he brought
it to perfection a dozen years ago. Wasn't it a dozen?« said Mr. Meagles,
addressing Doyce. »He is the most exasperating man in the world; he never
complains!«
    »Yes. Rather better than twelve years ago.«
    »Rather better?« said Mr. Meagles, »you mean rather worse. Well, Mr.
Clennam. He addresses himself to the Government. The moment he addresses himself
to the Government, he becomes a public offender! Sir,« said Mr. Meagles, in
danger of making himself excessively hot again, »he ceases to be an innocent
citizen, and becomes a culprit. He is treated from that instant as a man who has
done some infernal action. He is a man to be shirked, put off, brow-beaten,
sneered at, handed over by this highly-connected young or old gentleman, to that
highly-connected young or old gentleman, and dodged back again; he is a man with
no rights in his own time, or his own property; a mere outlaw, whom it is
justifiable to get rid of anyhow; a man to be worn out by