pivots this great world goes
round upon.
    »If John Barnacle,« said Mrs. Gowan, after the degeneracy of the times had
been fully ascertained, »if John Barnacle had but abandoned his most unfortunate
idea of conciliating the mob, all would have been well, and I think the country
would have been preserved.«
    The old lady with the high nose assented; but added that if Augustus
Stiltstalking had in a general way ordered the cavalry out with instructions to
charge, she thought the country would have been preserved.
    The noble Refrigerator assented; but added that if William Barnacle and
Tudor Stiltstalking, when they came over to one another and formed their
ever-memorable coalition, had boldly muzzled the newspapers, and rendered it
penal for any Editor-person to presume to discuss the conduct of any appointed
authority abroad or at home, he thought the country would have been preserved.
    It was agreed that the country (another word for the Barnacles and
Stiltstalkings) wanted preserving, but how it came to want preserving was not so
clear. It was only clear that the question was all about John Barnacle, Augustus
Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking, Tom, Dick, or Harry
Barnacle or Stiltstalking, because there was nobody else but mob. And this was
the feature of the conversation which impressed Clennam, as a man not used to
it, very disagreeably: making him doubt if it were quite right to sit there,
silently hearing a great nation narrowed to such little bounds. Remembering,
however, that in the Parliamentary debates, whether on the life of that nation's
body or the life of its soul, the question was usually all about and between
John Barnacle, Augustus Stiltstalking, William Barnacle and Tudor Stiltstalking,
Tom, Dick, or Harry Barnacle or Stiltstalking, and nobody else; he said nothing
on the part of mob, bethinking himself that mob was used to it.
    Mr. Henry Gowan seemed to have a malicious pleasure in playing off the three
talkers against each other, and in seeing Clennam startled by what they said.
Having as supreme a contempt for the class that had thrown him off, as for the
class that had not taken him on, he had no personal disquiet in anything that
passed. His healthy state of mind appeared even to derive a gratification from
Clennam's position of embarrassment and isolation among the good company; and if
Clennam had been in that condition with which Nobody was incessantly contending,
he would have suspected it, and would have struggled with the suspicion as a
meanness, even while he sat at the table.
    In the course of a