morning; albeit my lord, their county member, was amazed that they
failed to sleep in company with their butcher's meat. Miles of
close wells and pits of houses, where the inhabitants gasped for
air, stretched far away towards every point of the compass.
Through the heart of the town a deadly sewer ebbed and flowed, in
the place of a fine fresh river. What secular want could the
million or so of human beings whose daily labour, six days in the
week, lay among these Arcadian objects, from the sweet sameness of
which they had no escape between the cradle and the grave--what
secular want could they possibly have upon their seventh day?
Clearly they could want nothing but a stringent policeman.

Mr Arthur Clennam sat in the window of the coffee-house on Ludgate
Hill, counting one of the neighbouring bells, making sentences and
burdens of songs out of it in spite of himself, and wondering how
many sick people it might be the death of in the course of the
year. As the hour approached, its changes of measure made it more
and more exasperating. At the quarter, it went off into a
condition of deadly-lively importunity, urging the populace in a
voluble manner to Come to church, Come to church, Come to church!
At the ten minutes, it became aware that the congregation would be
scanty, and slowly hammered out in low spirits, They WON'T come,
they WON'T come, they WON'T come! At the five minutes, it
abandoned hope, and shook every house in the neighbourhood for
three hundred seconds, with one dismal swing per second, as a groan
of despair.

'Thank Heaven!' said Clennam, when the hour struck, and the bell
stopped.