Poor Mr. Jellyby, who very seldom spoke and almost always sat when he was at home with his head against the wall, became interested when he saw that Caddy and I were attempting to establish some order among all this waste and ruin and took off his coat to help.  But such wonderful things came tumbling out of the closets when they were opened—­bits of mouldy pie, sour bottles, Mrs. Jellyby’s caps, letters, tea, forks, odd boots and shoes of children, firewood, wafers, saucepan-lids, damp sugar in odds and ends of paper bags, footstools, blacklead brushes, bread, Mrs. Jellyby’s bonnets, books with butter sticking to the binding, guttered candle ends put out by being turned upside down in broken candlesticks, nutshells, heads and tails of shrimps, dinner-mats, gloves, coffee-grounds, umbrellas—­that he looked frightened, and left off again.  But he came regularly every evening and sat without his coat, with his head against the wall, as though he would have helped us if he had known how.

“Poor Pa!” said Caddy to me on the night before the great day, when we really had got things a little to rights.  “It seems unkind to leave him, Esther.  But what could I do if I stayed!  Since I first knew you, I have tidied and tidied over and over again, but it’s useless.  Ma and Africa, together, upset the whole house directly.  We never have a servant who don’t drink.  Ma’s ruinous to everything.”

Mr. Jellyby could not hear what she said, but he seemed very low indeed and shed tears, I thought.

“My heart aches for him; that it does!” sobbed Caddy.  “I can’t help thinking to-night, Esther, how dearly I hope to be happy with Prince, and how dearly Pa hoped, I dare say, to be happy with Ma.  What a disappointed life!”

“My dear Caddy!” said Mr. Jellyby, looking slowly round from the wail.  It was the first time, I think, I ever heard him say three words together.

“Yes, Pa!” cried Caddy, going to him and embracing him affectionately.

“My dear Caddy,” said Mr. Jellyby.  “Never have—­”

“Not Prince, Pa?” faltered Caddy.  “Not have Prince?”

“Yes, my dear,” said Mr. Jellyby.  “Have him, certainly.  But, never have—­”

I mentioned in my account of our first visit in Thavies Inn that Richard described Mr. Jellyby as frequently opening his mouth after dinner without saying anything.  It was a habit of his.  He opened his mouth now a great many times and shook his head in a melancholy manner.

“What do you wish me not to have?  Don’t have what, dear Pa?” asked Caddy, coaxing him, with her arms round his neck.

“Never have a mission, my dear child.”

Mr. Jellyby groaned and laid his head against the wall again, and this was the only time I ever heard him make any approach to expressing his sentiments on the Borrioboolan question.  I suppose he had been more talkative and lively once, but he seemed to have been completely exhausted long before I knew him.