 Chapter VIII. Book I of Little Dorit. Read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff. Little Dorit by Charles Dickens. Book I. Chapter VIII. The lock. Arthur Clenham stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer by what place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the street, when an old man came up and turned into the courtyard. He stooped a good deal and plodded along in a slow preoccupied manner, which made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe resort for him. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue, reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red cloth with which that phantom had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked itself up at the back of the old man's neck, into a confusion of great hair and rusty stock and buckle, which altogether nearly poked his head off, a greasy head it was, and a napless. Impending over his eyes, cracked and crumpled at the brim, and with a wisp of pocket-hunk achieved dangling out below it. His trousers were so long and loose, and his shoes so clumsy and large, that he shuffled like an elephant, though how much of this was gate, and how much trailing cloth and leather no one could have told. Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out case containing some wind instrument. In the same hand he had a penny-worth of snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, from which he slowly comforted his poor blue-old nose with a lengthened-out pinch, as Arthur Clenham looked at him. To this old man crossing the courtyard, he preferred his inquiry, touching him on the shoulder. The old man stopped and looked round, with the expression in his weak grey eyes of one who's thought had been far off, and who was a little dull of hearing also. Pray, sir, said Arthur, repeating his question. What is this place? Aye, this place! Returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff on its road, and pointing at the place without looking at it. This is the marginal sea, sir. The debtor's prison? Sir, said the old man with the air of deeming it not quite necessary to insist upon that designation, the debtor's prison. Returned himself about and went on. I beg your pardon, said Arthur, stopping him once more, but will you allow me to ask you another question? Can anyone go in here? Anyone can go in! replied the old man, plainly adding by the significance of his emphasis. But it is not everyone who can go out. Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place? Sir, returned the old man squeezing his little packet of snuff in his hand and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him. I am. I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good object. Do you know the name of Dorit here? My name, sir! replied the old man most unexpectedly. Is Dorit? Arthur pulled off his hat to him. Grant me the favour of half a dozen words. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement and hoped that assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of addressing you. I have recently come home to England after a long absence. I have seen at my mother's, Mrs. Clenham in the city, a young woman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken of as little Dorit. I have felt sincerely interested in her and have had a great desire to know something more about her. I saw her not a minute before you came up, passing at that door. The old man looked at him attentively. Are you a sailor, sir? He asked. He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that replied to him. Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburned face that you might be. Are you in earnest, sir? I do assure you that I am and do entreat you to believe that I am in plain earnest. I know very little of the world, sir, returned the other who had a weak and quavering voice. I am merely passing on like the shadow over the sundial. It would be worth no man's while to mislead me. It would really be too easy, too poor a success to yield any satisfaction. The young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother's child. My brother is William Dorit. I am a Frederick. You say you have seen her at your mother's. I know your mother befriends her. You have felt an interest in her and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see. He went on again and Arthur accompanied him. My brother, said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly facing round again, has been here many years and much that happens even among ourselves out of doors is kept from him for reasons that I needn't enter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece is working at her needle. Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said among us. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now, come and see. Arthur followed him down a narrow entry at the end of which a key was turned and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into a lodge or lobby across which they passed and so through another door and a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before turned around in his slow, stiff, stooping manner when they came to the turnkey on duty as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded and the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted. The night was dark and the prison lamps in the yard and the candles in the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of rye old curtain and blind had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered about but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old man, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or fourth doorway and began to ascend the stairs. There rather dark, sir, but you will not find anything in the way. He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. He had no sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw a little dorrit and saw the reason of her setting so much store by dining alone. She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself and was already warming it on a grid-iron over the fire for her father, clad in an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table. A clean cloth was spread before him with knife, fork and spoon, salt cellar, pepper box, glass and pewter-rail pot, such zests as his particular little file of cayenne pepper and his penny-worth of pickles in a saucer were not wanting. She started, coloured deeply and turned white. The visitor, more with his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her to be reassured and to trust him. I found this gentleman, said the uncle. Mr. Clannum, William, son of Amy's friend, at the outer gate, wishful as he was going by of paying his respects by hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my brother, William, sir. I hope, said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, that my respect for your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you, sir. Mr. Clannum returned the other rising, taking his cap off in the flat of his hand and so holding it, ready to put on again. You do me honour, you are welcome, sir, with a low bow. Frederick, a chair, praise it down, Mr. Clannum. He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off and resumed his own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his manner. These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians. You are welcome to the marshal's seat, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen to these walls. Perhaps you are aware, my daughter Amy may have mentioned that I am the father of this place. I, so I have understood, said Arthur, dashing at the assertion. You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl, sir, a dear girl, and longer comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear, put this dish on. Mr. Clannum will excuse the primitive customs to which we are reduced here. It is a compliment to ask you if you would do me the honour, sir, to... Thank you, returned Arthur, not a marshal. He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that the probability of his daughters having had a reserve as to her family history should be so far out of his mind. She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to his hand, and then sat beside him while he had his supper. Evidently in observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself and touched his glass with her lips. But Arthur saw she was troubled and took nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud of him, half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost heart. The father of the marshal's sea condescended towards his brother as an amiable, well-meaning man, a private character who had not arrived at distinction. Frederick, said he, You and Fanny's supper to your lodgings tonight, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick? She is walking with tip. Tip, as you may know, is my son Mr. Clannum. He has been a little wild and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was rather... He shracked his shoulders with a faint sigh and looked round the room. Oh, little adverse, your first visit here, sir? My first. You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody of any pretensions, any pretensions, comes here without being presented to me. As many as 40 or 50 in a day have been introduced to my brother, said Frederick faintly lighting up with a ray of pride. Yes, the father of the marshal's sea ascended. We have even exceeded that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a levy, quite a levy. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the name of the gentleman from Camberwell, who was introduced to me last Christmas week by that agreeable coal merchant who was remanded for six months. I don't remember his name, father. Frederick, do you remember his name? Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that Frederick was the last person upon Earth to put such a question to, with any hope of information. I mean, said his brother, the gentleman who did that handsome action with so much delicacy. Ha, Tush, the name has quite escaped me. Mr. Clenham, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you may like perhaps to know what it was. Very much, said Arthur, with drawing his eyes from the delicate head beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over it. It is so generous and shows so much fine feeling that it is almost a duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it on every suitable occasion without regard to personal sensitiveness. Well, it's of no use to disguise the fact. You must know, Mr. Clenham, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire to offer some little testimonial to the father of the place. To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half repressed and her timid little shrinking figure turning away was to see a sad, sad sight. Sometimes, he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated and clearing his throat every now and then. Sometimes it takes one shape and sometimes another but it is generally money and it is, I cannot but confess it, it is too often acceptable. This gentleman that I refer to was presented to me, Mr. Clenham, in a manner highly gratifying to my feelings and conversed not only with great politeness but with great information. All this time though he had finished his supper he was nervously going about his blade with his knife and fork as if some of it was still before him. It appeared from his conversation that he had a garden though he was delicate of mentioning it at first as gardens are not accessible to me but it came out through my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium, beautiful cluster of geranium to be sure which he had brought from his conservatory. On my taking notice of its rich color he showed me a piece of paper round it on which was written For the Father of the Marshall See and presented it to me but this was, not all, he made a particular request on taking leave that I would remove the paper in half an hour. I did so and I found that it contained two guineas. I assure you, Mr. Clenham, I received testimonials in many ways and of many degrees of value and they have always been unfortunately acceptable but I never was more pleased than with this particular testimonial. Father was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme when a bell began to ring and footsteps approached the door. A pretty girl of a far better figure and much more developed than little Dorrid though looking much younger in the face when the two were observed together stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger and a young man who was with her stopped too. Mr. Clenham, honey, my eldest daughter and my son Mr. Clenham, a bell is a signal for visitors to retire then so they have come to say good night but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. Girls, Mr. Clenham will excuse any household business you may have together. He knows I dare say that I have but one room here. I only want my clean dress from Amy, Father, said the second girl. And I my clothes, said Tip. Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of drawers above and a bedstead below and produced two little bundles which she handed to her brother and sister. Men didn't made up. Clenham heard the sister asking a whisper to which Amy answered, Yes. He had risen now and took the opportunity of glancing round the room. The bare walls had been coloured green evidently by an unskilled hand and were poorly decorated with a few prints. The window was curtained and the floor carpeted and there were shelves and pegs and other such conveniences that had accumulated in the course of years. It was a close confined room poorly furnished and the chimney smoked to boot or the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was superfluous but constant pains and care had made it neat even after its kind comfortable. All the while the bell was ringing and the uncle was anxious to go. Come Fanny, come Fanny! He said with his ragged clarion at case under his arm. The lock child, the lock! Fanny bet her father good night and whisked her fairly. Tip had already clattered downstairs. Now Mr. Clenham said the uncle looking back as he shuffled out after them. The lock sir, the lock! Mr. Clenham had two things to do before he followed. One, to offer his testimonial to the father of the Marshall sea without giving pain to his child. The other, to say something to that child though it were but a word in explanation of his having come there. Allow me! said the father to see you downstairs. She had slipped out after the rest and they were alone. Not on any account said the visitor hurriedly. Pray allow me to chink, chink, chink. Mr. Clenham said the father I am deeply, deeply but his visitor had shut up his hand to stop the clinking and had gone downstairs with great speed. He saw no little Dorit on his way down or in the yard. The last two or three stragglers were hurrying to the lodge and he was following when he caught sight of her in the doorway of the first house from the entrance. He turned back hastily. Pray forgive me. He said, speaking to you here. Pray forgive me for coming here at all. I followed you tonight. I did so that I might endeavour to render you and your family some service. You know the terms on which I and my mother are and may not be surprised that I have preserved our distant relations at her house lest I should unintentionally make her jealous or resentful or do you any injury in her estimation. What I have seen here in this short time has greatly increased my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you. It would recompense me for much disappointment if I could hope to gain your confidence. She was scared at first but seemed to take courage while he spoke to her. You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me but I... but I wish you had not watched me. You understood the emotion with which she said it to arise in her father's behalf and he respected it and was silent. Mrs. Clenham has been of great service to me. I don't know what we should have done without the employment she has given me. I am afraid it may not be a good return to become secret with her. I can say no more tonight, sir. I'm sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you. Thank you. Let me ask you one question before I leave. Have you known my mother long? I think too, yes, sir. The bell has stopped. How did you know her first? Did she send here for you? No, she does not even know that I live here. We have a friend, father and I, a poor, labouring man but the best of friends and I wrote out that I wish to do needlework and gave his address and he got what I wrote out displayed at a few places where it cost nothing and Mrs. Clenham found me that way and sent for me. The gate will be locked, sir. She was so tremulous and agitated and he was so moved by compassion for her and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him that he could scarcely tear himself away but the stoppage of the bell and the quiet in the prison were a warning to depart and as he too hurried words of kindness he left her gliding back to her father but he remained too late. The inner gate was locked and the lodge closed. After a little fruitless knocking with his hand he was standing there with a disagreeable conviction upon him that he had got to get through the night when a voice accosted him from behind. Corte said the voice you won't go home till morning. Oh, it's you, is it, Mr. Clenham? The voice was tips and they stood looking at one another in the prison yard as it began to rain. You've done it, observed tip. You must be sharper than that next time but you're locked in too, said Arthur. I believe I am, said tip sarcastically about but not in your way. I belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that our governor must never know it. I don't see why myself. Can I get any shelter? asked Arthur. What had I better do? We had better get hold of Amy first of all, said tip referring any difficulty to her as a matter of course. I would rather walk about all night. It's not much to do, then give that trouble. You needn't do that if you don't mind paying for a bed. If you don't mind paying, they'll make you up one on the snaggery table under the circumstances. If you'll come along, I'll introduce you there. As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the room he had lately left where the light was still burning. Yes, sir? said tip following his glance. That's the governor's. She'll sit with him for another hour reading yesterday's paper to him or something of that sort and then she'll come out like a little ghost and vanish away without a sound. I don't understand you. The governor sleeps up in the room and she has a lodging at the turn keys. First house there, said tip pointing out the doorway into which she had retired. First house, Skypala. She based twice as much for it as she would for one twice as good outside. But she stands by the governor, poor dear girl, day and night. This brought them to the Tavern establishment at the upper end of the prison where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club. The apartment on the ground floor in which it was held was the snaggery in question. The presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter pots, glasses, pipes, tobacco ashes and general flavour of members were still as that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment. The snaggery had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential to grog for ladies in respect that it was hot and strong. But in the third point of analogy requiring plenty of it the snaggery was defective being but a cooped up apartment. The unaccustomed visitor from outside naturally assumed everybody here to be prisoners landlord, waiter, barmaid, pot boy and all whether they were or not did not appear. But they all had a weedy look. The keeper of a chandlest shop parlor, who took in gentlemen boarders, lent his assistance in making the bed. He had been a tailor in his time and had kept a fate on, he said. He boasted that he stood up litigiously for the interests of the college and he had undefined and undefinable ideas that the marshal intercepted a fund which ought to come to the collegians. He liked to believe this and always impressed the shadowy grievance on newcomers and strangers though he could not for his life have explained what fund he meant or how the notion had got rooted in his soul. He had fully convinced himself notwithstanding that his own proper share of the fund was three and nine pence a week and that in this amount he as an individual collegian was swindled by the marshal regularly every Monday. Apparently he helped to make the bed that he might not lose an opportunity of stating this case after which unloading of his mind and after announcing as it seemed he always did without anything coming of it that he was going to write a letter to the papers and show the marshal up he fell into miscellaneous conversation with the rest. It was evident from the general tone of the whole party that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state of mankind and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally broke out. In this strange scene of actors flitting about him Arthur Clenham looked on at the preparations as if they were part of a dream. Pending which the long initiated tip with an awful enjoyment of the Snagery's resources pointed out the common kitchen fire maintained by subscription of collegians the boiler for hot water supported in like manner and other premises generally tending to the deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy and wise was to come to the marshal of insolvency. The two tables put together in a corner were at length converted into a very fair bed and the stranger was left to the Windsor chair the presidential tribune the weary atmosphere sawdust, pipe lights spittoons and repose but the last item was long, long long in linking itself to the rest. The novelty of the place the coming upon it without preparation the sense of being locked up the remembrance of that room upstairs of the two brothers and above all of the retiring childish form and the face in which he now saw ears of insufficient food if not of want kept him waking and unhappy Speculations to bearing the strangest relations towards the prison but always concerning the prison ran like nightmares through his mind while he lay awake where the coffins were kept ready for people who might die there where they were kept how they were kept where people who died in the prison were buried how they were taken out what forms were observed whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead as to escaping what chances there were of escape whether a prisoner could scale the walls with a cord and grapple how he could descend upon the other side he could alight on a house top steal down a staircase let himself out at a door and get lost in the crowd as to fire in the prison if one were to break out while he lay there and these involuntary starts of fancy were after all but the setting of a picture in which three people kept before him his father with the steadfast look with which he had died prophetically darkened forth in the portrait his mother with her arm up warding off his suspicion little Dorit with her hand on the degraded arm and her drooping head turned away what if his mother had an old reason she well knew for suffering to this poor girl what if the prisoner now sleeping quietly heaven granted by the light of the great day of judgment should trace back his fault to her what if any act of hers and of his father's should have even remotely brought the gray heads of those two brothers so low a swift thought shot into his mind in that long imprisonment here and in her own long confinement to her room did his mother find a balance to be struck I admit that I was accessory to that man's captivity I have suffered for it in kind he has decayed in his prison I in mine I have paid the penalty when all the other thoughts get faded out this one held possession of him when he fell asleep she came before him in her wheeled chair warding him off with this justification when he awoke and sprang up causelessly frightened the words were in his ears as if her voice had slowly spoken them at his pillow to break his rest he withers away in his prison I wither away in mine inexorable justice is done what do I owe on this score end of chapter the 8th book the first this recording is in the public domain chapter the 9th book the first of Little Dorit read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff Little Dorit by Charles Dickens book the first chapter the 9th Little Mother the morning light was in no hurry to climb the prison wall and look in at the snagery windows and when it did come it would have been more welcome if it had come alone instead of bringing a rush of rain with it but the equinoxial gales were blowing out at sea and the impartial southwest wind in its flight would not neglect even the narrow marshal sea while it wrought through the steeple of St. George's church and twirled all the cows in the neighborhood it made a swoop to beat the southern smoke into the jail and plunging down the chimneys of the few early collegians who were yet lighting their fires half suffocated them Arthur Clenham would have been little disposed to linger in bed though his bed had been in a more private situation and less affected by the raking out of yesterday's fire the kindling of today's under the collegiate boiler the feeling of that spartan vessel at the pump the sweeping and sore dusting of the common room and other such preparations heartily glad to see the morning though little rested by the night it turned out as soon as he could distinguish objects about him and paced the yard for two heavy hours before the gate was opened the walls were so near to one another and the wild clouds hurried over them so fast that it gave him a sensation like the beginning of sea sickness to look up at the gusty sky the rain carried a slant by floors of wind blackened that side of the central building which he had visited last night but left a narrow dry trough under the lee of the wall where he walked up and down among the weights of straw and dust and paper the waste droppings of the pump and the straw leaves of yesterday's greens it was a haggard of you of life as a man need look upon nor was it relieved by any glimpse of the little creature who had brought him there perhaps she glided out of her doorway and in at that where her father lived while his face was turned from both but he saw nothing of her it was too early for her brother to have seen him once was to have seen enough of him to know that he would be sluggish to leave whatever frowsy bet he occupied night so as Arthur Clenham walked up and down waiting for the gate to open he cast about in his mind for future rather than for present means of pursuing his discoveries at last the lodge gate turned and the turn keys standing on the step taking an early comment his hair was ready to let him out with a joyful sense of release he passed through the lodge and found himself again in the little outer courtyard where he had spoken to the brother last night there was a string of people already struggling in whom it was not difficult to identify as the non-descript messengers go-betweens and errand-bearers of the place some of them had been lounging in the rain until the gate should open others who had timed their arrival with greater nicety were coming up now and passing in with damn whitey brown paperbacks from the grocers loaves of bread lumps of butter eggs, milk and the like the shabbiness of these attendants upon shabbiness the poverty of these insolvent waiters upon insolvency was a sight to see such threadbare coats and trousers such fasty gowns and shoals such squashed hats and bonnets such boots and shoes such umbrellas and walking sticks never were seen in rag-fare all of them were the cast-off clothes of other men and women were made up of patches and pieces of other people's individuality and had no sartorial existence of their own proper their walk was the walk of a race apart they had a peculiar way of doggedly slinging round the corner as if they were eternally going to the pawnbrokers when they coughed they coughed like people accustomed to this and in drafty passages waiting for answers to letters in faded ink which gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and no satisfaction as they eyed the stranger in passing they eyed him with borrowing eyes hungry sharp speculative as to his softness if they were accredited to him and the likelihood of his standing something handsome with their high shoulders shumbled in their own steady legs buttoned and pinned and darned and dragged their clothes frayed with buttonholes leaked out of their figures in dirty little ends of tape and issued from their mouths in alcoholic breathings as these people passed him standing still in the courtyard and one of them turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his services it came into Arthur Clenham's mind to miss Dorit again before he went away she would have recovered her first surprise and might feel easier with him he asked this member of the fraternity who had two red herrings in his hand and a loaf and a blacking brush under his arm where was the nearest place to get a cup of coffee at the nondescript replied in encouraging terms and brought him to a coffee shop in the street within a stone's throw do you know miss Dorit ask the new client the nondescript knew two miss Dorit's one who was born inside that was the one that was the one the nondescript had known her many years in regard of the other miss Dorit the nondescript lodged in the same house with her self and uncle this changed the client's half-formed design of remaining at the coffee shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorit had issued forth into the street he entrusted the nondescript with a confidential message to her importing that the visitor who had waited on her father last night begged the favour of a few words with her at her uncle's lodging he obtained from the same source four directions to the house which was very near dismissed the nondescript gratified with half a crown and having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee shop repaired with all speed to the clarinet there were so many lodges in this house that the doorpost seemed to be as full of bell handles as a cathedral organism stops doubtful which might be the clarinet stop it was considering the point when a shuttlecock flew out of the parlor window and alighted on his hat he then observed that in the parlor window was a blind with inscription Mr. Cripple's Academy also in another line evening tuition and behind the blind was a little white-faced boy with a slice of bread and butter and a battle door the window being accessible from the footway he looked in over the blind returned the shuttlecock and put his question Dorit said the little white-faced boy Master Cripple's in fact Mr. Dorit heard bell and one knock pupils of Mr. Cripple's appeared to have been making a copy book of the street door it was so extensively scribbled over in pencil the frequency of the inscriptions old Dorit and dirty dick in combination suggested intentions of personality on the part of Mr. Cripple's pupils there was ample time to make these observations before the door was opened by the poor old man himself ha! said he very slowly remembering Arthur you were shut in last night yes Mr. Dorit I hope to meet your niece here presently oh said he pondering out of my brother's way true would you come upstairs and wait for her thank you turning himself as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he heard or said he led the way up the narrow stairs the house was very close and had an unwholesome smell the little staircase windows looked in at the back windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself with poles and lines thrust out of them on which unsightly linen hung as if the inhabitants were angling for clothes and had had some wretched bites not worth attending to in the back garret a sickly room with a turn up bedstead in it so hastily and recently turned up that the blankets were boiling over as it were and keeping the lid open a half finished breakfast of coffee and toast for two persons was jumbled down anyhow on a rickety table there was no one there the old man mumbling to himself after some consideration that Fanny had run away went to the next room to fetch her back the visitor observing that she held the door on the inside and that when the uncle tried to open it there was a sharp adoration of don't stupid and an appearance of loose stocking and flannel concluded that the young lady was in an andress the uncle without appearing to come to any conclusion shuffled in again sat down in his chair and began warming his hands at the fire not that it was called or that he had any waking idea whether it was or not what did you think of my brother sir he asked when he by and by discovered what he was doing left off reached over to the chimney piece and took his clarion at case down I was glad said Arthur very much at a loss where his thoughts were on the brother before him to find him so well and cheerful ha muttered the old man yes, yes, yes, yes Arthur wondered what he could possibly want with the clarion at case he did not want it at all he discovered in due time that it was not the little paper of snuff which was also on the chimney piece put it back again took down the snuff instead and solaced himself with a pinch he was as feeble spare and slow in his pinches as in everything else but a certain little trickling of enjoyment of them played in the poor worn nerves about the corners of his eyes and mouth Amy, Mr. Clenham what do you think of her I am a much impressed Mr. Dorrid by all that I have seen of her and thought of her my brother would have been quite lost without Amy he returned we should all have been lost without Amy she is a very good girl, Amy she does her duty Arthur fancied that he had heard in these praises a certain tone of custom which he had heard from the father last night with an inward protest and feeling of antagonism it was not that they stinted her praises or were insensible to what she did for them but that they were lazily habituated to her as they were to all the rest of their condition he fancied that although they had before them every day the means of comparison between her and one another and themselves they regarded her as being in her necessary place as holding a position towards them all which belonged to her like her name or her age he fancied that they viewed her not as having risen away from the prison atmosphere but as appertaining to it as being vaguely what they had a right to expect and nothing more her uncle resumed his breakfast and was munching toast softened coffee oblivious of his guest when the third bell rang that was Amy he said and went down to let her in leaving the visitor with his vivid a picture on his mind of his begrimed hands dirt-worn face and decayed figure as if he was still drooping in his chair she came up after him in the usual plain dress and with the usual timid manner her lips were a little parted as if her heart beat faster than usual Mr. Clanum, Amy said her uncle has been expecting you some time I took the liberty of sending your message I received the message sir are you going to my mother's this morning I think not for it is past your usual hour not today sir I am not wanted today will you allow me to walk a little way in whatever direction you may be going I can then speak to you as we walk both without detaining you here and without intruding longer here myself she looked embarrassed but said if he pleased he made a pretense of having mislaid his walking stick to give her time to set the bedstead right to answer her sister's impatient knock at the wall and to say a word softly to her uncle then he found it and they went downstairs just the following the uncle standing at the stair head and probably forgetting them before they had reached the ground floor Mr. Cripple's pupils who were by this time coming to school desisted from their morning recreation of cuffing one another with bags and books to stare with all the eyes they had at a stranger who had been to see dirty dick they bore the trying spectacle in silence until the mysterious visitor was at a safe distance when they burst into pebbles and yells and likewise into reviling dances and in all respects buried the pipe of peace with so many savage ceremonies that if Mr. Cripple's had been the chief of the Crippleway boo tribe with his war paint on they could scarcely have done greater justice to their education in the midst of this homage Mr. Arthur Clenham offered his arm to Little Dorrid and Little Dorrid took it will it go by the iron bridge? said he where there is an escape from the noise of the street Little Dorrid answered if he pleased and presently ventured to hope that he would not mind Mr. Cripple's boys for she had herself received her education such as it was in Mr. Cripple's evening academy he returned with the best will in the world that Mr. Cripple's boys were forgiven out of the bottom of his soul thus did Cripple's unconsciously become a master of the ceremonies between them and bring them more naturally together than Beau Nash might have done if they had lived in his golden days and he had alighted from his coach and six for the purpose the morning remained squally and the streets were miserably muddy but no rain fell as they walked towards the iron bridge the little creature seemed so young in his eyes that there were moments when he found himself thinking of her if not speaking to her as if she were a child perhaps he seemed as old in her eyes as she seemed young in his I am sorry to hear you were so inconvenienced last night sir as to be locked in it was very unfortunate it was nothing he returned he had had a very good bed oh yes she said quickly she believed there were excellent beds at the coffee house he noticed that the coffee house was quite a majestic hotel to her and that she treasured its reputation I believe it is very expensive said little Dorit but my father has told me that quite beautiful dinners maybe got there and wine she added timidly were you ever there? oh no only into the kitchen to fetch hot water to think of growing up with a kind of awe upon one as to the luxuries of that superb establishment the Marshall C Hotel I asked you last night said Clenum how you had become acquainted with my mother did you ever hear her name before she sent for you? no sir do you think your father ever did? no sir he met her eyes raised to his with so much wonder in them she was scared when the encounter took place and shrunk away again but he felt it necessary to say I have a reason for asking which I cannot very well explain but you must on no account suppose it to be of a nature to cause you the least alarm or anxiety quite the reverse and you think that at no time of your father's life was my name of Clenum ever familiar to him no sir he felt from the tone in which she spoke that she was glancing up at him with those parted lips therefore he looked before him rather than make her heart beat quicker still by embarrassing her afresh thus they merged upon the iron bridge which was asquired after the roaring streets as though it had been open country the wind blew roughly the wet squalls came rattling past them skimming the pools on the road and pavement and draining them down into the river the clouds raced on furiously in the lead coloured sky the smoke and mist raced after them the dark tide ran fierce and strong in the same direction little Dorrid seemed the least the quietest and weakest of heaven's creatures let me put you in a coach said Clenum very nearly adding my poor child she hurriedly declined saying that wet or dry made little difference to her she was used to go about in all weathers to be so and was touched with more pity thinking of the slight figure at his side making its nightly way through the damp dark boisterous streets to such a place of rest you spoke so feelingly to me last night sir and I found afterwards that you had been so generous to my father that I could not resist your message if it was only to thank you especially as I wished very much to say to you she hesitated and trembled and tears rose in her eyes but did not fall to say to me that I hope you will not misunderstand my father don't judge him sir as you would judge others outside the gates he has been there so long I never saw him outside but I can understand that he must have grown different in something since my thoughts will never be unjust or harsh towards him believe me not she said with a prouder air as the misgiving evidently crept upon her that she might seem to be abandoning him not that he has anything to be ashamed of for himself or that I have anything to be ashamed of for him he only requires to be understood I only asked for him that his life may be fairly remembered all that he said was quite true it all happened just as he related it he is very much respected everybody who comes in is glad to know him he is more courted than anyone else he is far more thought of than the Marshal is if ever pride was innocent it was innocent in little Dorit when she grew boastful of her father it is often said that his manners are a true gentleman's and quite a study I see none like them in that place but he is admitted to be superior to all the rest this is quite as much why they make him presence as because they know him to be needy he is not to be blamed for being in need, poor love who could be in prison a quarter of a century and be prosperous what affection in her words what compassion in her repressed tears what a great soul of fidelity within her how true the light that shed false brightness around him if I have found it best to conceal where my home is it is not because I am ashamed of him, God forbid nor am I so much ashamed of the place itself as might be supposed people are not bad because they come there I have known numbers of good, persevering, honest people come there through misfortune they are almost all kind-hearted to one another and it would be ungrateful indeed in me to forget that I have had many quiet, comfortable hours there but I had an excellent friend there when I was quite a baby who was very, very fond of me that I have been taught there and have worked there and have slept soundly there I think it would be almost cowardly and cruel not to have some little attachment for it after all this she had relieved the faithful fullness of her heart and modestly said, raising her eyes appealingly to her new friends I did not mean to say so much nor have I ever but once spoken about this before but it seems to set it more right than it was last night I said I wished you had not followed me, sir I don't wish it so much now unless you should think indeed I don't wish it at all unless I should have spoken so confusedly that you can scarcely understand me which I am afraid may be the case he told her with perfect truth that it was not the case and putting himself between her and the sharp wind and rain showed at her as well as he could I feel permitted now he said to ask you a little more concerning your father ask him any creditors oh a great number I mean detaining creditors who keep him where he is oh yes a great number can you tell me I can get the information no doubt elsewhere if you cannot who is the most influential of them little Doritz said after considering a little that she used to hear long ago of Mr. Tite Barnacle as a man of great power he was a commissioner or a board or a trustee or something he lived in Grovener Square she thought or very near it he was under government high in the circumlocution office she appeared to have acquired in her infancy some awful impression of the might of this formidable Mr. Tite Barnacle of Grovener Square or very near it and the circumlocution office which quite crashed her when she mentioned him it can do no harm but Arthur if I see this Mr. Tite Barnacle the thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness intercepted it ah said little Dorit shaking her head with the mild despair of a lifetime many people used to think once of getting my poor father out but you don't know how hopeless it is she forgot to be shy at the moment in honestly warning him away from the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising and looked at him with eyes which assuredly in association with her patient face her fragile figure her spare dress and the wind and rain did not turn him from his purpose of helping her even if it could be done said she and it never can be done now where could father live or how could he live I have often thought that if such a change could come it might be anything but a service to him now people might not think so well of him outside as they do there might not be so gently dealt with outside as he is there he might not be so fit himself for the life outside as he is for that here for the first time she could not restrain her tears from falling and the little thin hands he had watched when they were so busy trembled as they clasped each other it would be a new distress to him even to know that I earn a little money and that Fanny earns a little money he's so anxious about as you see feeling helplessly shut up there such a good good father he let the little burst of feeling go by before he spoke it was soon gone she was not accustomed to think of herself or to trouble anyone with her emotions he had but glanced away at the piles of city roofs and chimneys among which the smoke was rolling heavily and at the wilderness of masts on the river and the wilderness of steeples on the shore indistinctly mixed together in the stormy haze when she was again as quiet as she had been plying her needle in his mother's room you would be glad to have your brother set at liberty oh very very glad sir well we will hope for him at least you told me last night of a friend you had his name was Plournish little Dorit said and where did Plournish live? Plournish lived in bleeding hard yard he was only a plasterer little Dorit said as a caution to him not to form high social expectations of Plournish he lived at the last house in bleeding hard yard and his name was over a little gateway Arthur took down the address and gave her his he had now done all he sought to do for the present except that he wished to leave her with a reliance upon him and to have something like a promise from her that she would cherish it there is one friend he said putting up his pocketbook as I take you back you are going back? oh yes going straight home as I take you back the word home jarred upon him let me ask you to persuade yourself that you have another friend I make no professions and say no more you are truly kind to me sir I am sure I need no more they walked back through the miserable muddy streets and among the poor mean shops and were jostled by the crowds of dirty hucksters usual to a poor neighbourhood there was nothing by the short way that was pleasant to any of the five senses yet it was not a common passage through common rain and mire and noise to clannum having this little slender careful creature on his arm how young she seemed to him or how old he to her or what a secret either to the other in that beginning of the destined interweaving of their stories matters not here the thought of her having been born and bred among these scenes and shrinking through them now familiar yet misplaced you thought of her long acquaintance with the squalid needs of life and of her innocence of her solicitude for others and her few years and her childish aspect they were coming to the high street where the prison stood when a voice cried little mother little turret stopping and looking back an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them still crying little mother fell down and scattered the contents of a large basket filled with potatoes in the mud oh Maggie said little turret what a clumsy child you are Maggie was not hurt but picked herself up immediately and then began to pick up the potatoes in which both little turret and Arthur clannum helped Maggie picked up very few potatoes and a great quantity of mud but they were all recovered and deposited in the basket Maggie then smeared her muddy face with her shawl and presenting it to Mr. Clannum as a type of purity enabled him to see what she was like she was about 8 and 20 with large bones large features large feet and hands large eyes and no hair her large eyes were limpid and almost colorless she seemed to be very little affected by light and to stand unnaturally still there was also that attentive listening expression in her face which is seen in the face of the blind but she was not blind having one tolerably serviceable eye her face was not exceedingly ugly though it was only redeemed from being so by a smile a good human smile and pleasant in itself but rendered pitiable by being constantly there a great white cap with a quantity of opaque frilling that was always flapping about apologized for Maggie's boldness and made it so very difficult for her old black bonnet to retain its place upon her head that it held on round her neck like a gypsy's baby a commission of haberdashes could alone have reported what the rest of her poor dress was made of but it was a strong general resemblance to seaweed with here and there a gigantic tea leaf a shawl looked particularly like a tea leaf after long infusion Arthur Clenham looked at little Dorit with the expression of one saying may I ask who this is little Dorit whose hand this Maggie still calling her little mother had began to fondle answered in words they were under a gateway into which the majority of potatoes had rolled this is Maggie sir Maggie sir a personage presented little mother she's the granddaughter said little Dorit granddaughter echoed Maggie of my old nurse who has been dead a long time Maggie how old are you ten mother said Maggie you can't think how good she is sir said little Dorit with infinite tenderness good she is echoed Maggie transferring the pronoun in a most expressive way from herself to her little mother or how clever said little Dorit she goes on errands as well as anyone Maggie laughed and as stressed worthy as the bank of England Maggie laughed she earns her own living entirely entirely sir said little Dorit in a lower and triumphant tone really does what is her history asked Clenham think of that Maggie said little Dorit taking her two large hands and clapping them together a gentleman from thousands of miles away wanting to know your history my history cried Maggie little mother she means me said little Dorit rather confused she is very much attached to me her old grandmother was not so kind to her as she should have been was she Maggie said made a drinking vessel of her clenched left hand drank out of it and said gin then beat an imaginary child and said room handles and pokers when Maggie was ten years old said little Dorit watching her face while she spoke she had a bad fever sir and she has never grown any older ever since ten years old said Maggie nodding her head but what a nice hospital comfortable wasn't it oh so nice it was such an evening place she had never been at peace before sir said little Dorit turning towards Arthur for an instant and speaking low and she always runs off upon that such beds there is there cried Maggie such lemonades such oranges such delicious broth and wine such chicken wonderful place to go and stop at so Maggie stopped there as long as she could said little Dorit in her former tone of telling a child story the tone decide for Maggie's ear and at last when she could stop there no longer she came out then because she was never to be more than ten years old however long she lived however long she lived I called Maggie and because she was very weak indeed was so weak that when she began to laugh she couldn't stop herself which was a great pity Maggie mighty grave of a sudden her grandmother did not know what to do with her and for some years was very unkind to her indeed at length in cause of time Maggie began to take pains to improve herself and to be very attentive and very industrious and by degrees was allowed to come in and out as often as she liked and got enough to do to support herself and as support herself and that said little Dorit clapping the two great hands together again is Maggie's history as Maggie knows but Arthur would have known what was wanting to its completeness though he had never heard of the words little mother though he had never seen the fondling of the small spare hand though he had had no sight for the tears now standing in the colourless eyes though he had had no hearing for the sob that checked the clumsy laugh the dirty gateway with the wind and rain whistling through it and the basket of muddy potatoes waiting to be spilled again or taken up never seemed the common hole it really was when he looked back to it by these lights never never they were very near the end of their walk and they now came out of the gateway to finish it nothing would serve Maggie but that they must stop at a grosser's window short of their destination for her to show her learning she could read after a sort and picked out the fat figures in the tickets of prices for the most part correctly she also stumbled with a large balance of success against her failures through various philanthropic recommendations to try our mixture try our family black try our orange flavoured peko challenging competition at the head of flowery teas and various cautions to the public against spurious establishments and adulterated articles when he saw how pleasure brought a rosy tint into little Dorit's face when Maggie made a hit he felt that he could have stood there making a library of the grossest window until the rain and wind were tired the courtyard received them at last and there he said goodbye to little Dorit little as she had always looked she looked left she had always looked she looked less than ever when he saw her going into the Marshall's sea lodge passage the little mother attended by her big child the cage door opened and when the small bird reared in captivity had tamely fluttered in he saw it shut again and then he came away end of chapter the ninth book the first this recording is in the public domain chapter the tenth book the first of little Dorit read for LibriVox.org by Ellis Christoff little Dorit by Charles Dickens book the first chapter the tenth containing the whole science of government the circumlocution office was, as everybody knows without being told the most important department under government no public business of any kind could possibly be done at any time without the acquiescence of the circumlocution office its finger was in the largest public pie and in the smallest public tart it was equally impossible to do the plainest right and to undo the plainest wrong without the express authority of the circumlocution office if another gunpowder plot had been discovered half an hour before the lighting of the match nobody would have been justified in saving the parliament until there had been half a score of boards half a bushel of minutes several sacks of official memoranda and a family ward full of ungrammatical correspondence on the part of the circumlocution office this glorious establishment had been early in the field when the one sublime principle involving the difficult art of governing a country was first distinctly revealed to statesmen it had been foremost to study that bright revelation and to carry its shining influence through the whole of the official proceedings whatever was required to be done the circumlocution office was beforehand with all the public departments in the art of perceiving how not to do it through this delicate perception through the tact with which it invariably seized it and through the genius with which it always acted on it the circumlocution office had risen to overtop all the public departments and the public condition had risen to be what it was it is true that how not to do it was the great study and object of all public departments and professional politicians all around the circumlocution office it is true that every new premier and every new government coming in because they had upheld a certain thing as necessary to be done were no sooner coming than they applied their utmost faculties to discovering how not to do it it is true that from the moment when a general election was over every returned man who had been raving on hustings because it hadn't been done and who had been asking the friends of the honorable gentleman in the opposite interest on pain of impeachment to tell him why it hadn't been done and who had been asserting that it must be done and who had been pledging himself that it should be done began to devise how it was not to be done it is true that the debates of both houses of parliament the whole session through uniformly tended to the protracted deliberation how not to do it it is true that the royal speech at the opening of such session virtually said my lords and gentlemen you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty and patriotism how not to do it and you have found out and with the blessing of providence upon the harvest natural not political it is true that the royal speech at the close of such session virtually said my lords and gentlemen you have through several laborious months been considering with great loyalty to the harvest natural not political I now dismiss you all this is true but the circumlocution office went beyond it because the circumlocution office went on mechanically every day keeping this wonderful all sufficient wheel of statesmanship how not to do it in motion because the circumlocution office was down upon any ill-advised public servant who was going to do it or who appeared to be by any surprising accident and remote danger of doing it with a minute and a memorandum and a letter of instructions that extinguished him it was this spirit of national efficiency in the circumlocution office that had gradually led to its having something to do with everything mechanicians natural philosophers soldiers sailors, petitioners memorialists grievances people who wanted to prevent grievances people who wanted to redress grievances jobbing people jobbed people people who couldn't get rewarded for merit and people who couldn't get punished for demerit were all indiscriminately tucked up under the full-scap paper of the circumlocution office numbers of people were lost in the circumlocution office unfortunate with wrongs or with projects for the general welfare and they had better have had wrongs at first than have taken that bitter English recipe for certainly getting them who in slow laps of time and agony had passed safely through other public departments who according to rule had been bullied in this over-reached by that and evaded by the other got referred at last to the circumlocution office the story appeared in the light of day boards sat upon them secretaries minuted upon them commissioners gabbled about them clerks registered entered, checked and ticked them off and they melted away in short, all the business of the country went through the circumlocution office except the business that never came out of it and its name was Legion sometimes the spirits attacked the circumlocution office sometimes parliamentary questions were asked about it and even parliamentary motions made or threatened about it by demagogues so low and ignorant as to hold that the real recipe of government was how to do it then with the noble lord or right honourable gentleman in whose department it was to defend the circumlocution office put an orange in his pocket and make a regular field day of the occasion then would he come down to that house with a slap upon the table and meet the honourable gentleman food to food then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that the circumlocution office not only was blameless in this matter but was commendable in this matter was extollable to the skies in this matter then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that although the circumlocution office was invariably right and holy right it never was so right as in this matter then would he be there to tell that honourable gentleman that it would have been more to his honour more to his credit more to his good taste more to his good sense more to half the dictionary of common places if he had left the circumlocution office alone and never approached this matter then would he keep one eye upon a coach or crammer from the circumlocution office sitting below the bar and smash the honourable gentleman with the circumlocution office account of this matter and although one of two things always happened namely either that the circumlocution office had nothing to say and said it or that it had something to say of which the noble lord or right honourable gentleman blundered one half and forgot the other the circumlocution office was always voted immaculate by an accommodating majority such a nursery of statesmen had the department become in virtue of a long career of this nature that several solemn lords had attained the reputation of being quite unearthly prodigies of business solely from having practised how not to do it as the head of the circumlocution office as to the minor priests and acolytes of that temple the result of all this was that they stood divided into two classes and downed to the junior messenger either believed in the circumlocution office as a heaven born institution that had an absolute right to do whatever it liked or took refuge in total infidelity and considered it a flagrant nuisance the barnacle family had for some time helped to administer the circumlocution office the tight barnacle branch indeed considered themselves in a general way as having had rights in that direction and took it ill if any other family had much to say to it the barnacles were a very high family and a very large family they were dispersed all over the public offices and held all sorts of public places either the nation was under a load of obligation to the barnacles or the barnacles were under a load of obligation to the nation it was not quite unanimously settled which the barnacles having their opinion the nation theirs the mr tight barnacle who at the period now in question usually coached or crammed the statesmen at the head of the circumlocution office when that noble or right honorable individual sat a little uneasily in his saddle by reason of some vagabond making a tilt at him in a newspaper was more flush of blood than money as a barnacle he had his place which was a snug thing enough and as a barnacle he had of course put in his son barnacle junior in the office but he had intermarried with a branch of the still talkings who were also better endowed in a sanguinius point of view than with real or personal property and of this marriage there had been issue barnacle junior and three young ladies what with the patrician requirements of barnacle junior the three young ladies mrs tight barnacle knee still stalking and himself mr tight barnacle found the intervals between quarter day and quarter day rather longer than he could have desired a circumstance which he always attributed to the country's parsimony for mr tight barnacle mr rather clenum made his fifth inquiry one day at the circumlocution office having on previous occasions awaited that gentlemen successively in a whole a glass case a waiting room and a fireproof passage where the department seemed to keep its wind on this occasion mr barnacle was not engaged as he had been before with the noble prodigy at the head of the department but was absent barnacle junior however was announced as a lesser star yet visible above the office horizon with barnacle junior he signified his desire to confer and found that young gentleman singeing the calves of his legs of the parental fire and supporting his spine against the mantle shelf it was a comfortable room handsomely furnished in the higher official manner and presenting stateless suggestions of the absent barnacle in the thick carpet the leather cupboard desk to sit at the leather cupboard desk to stand at the formidable easy chair and hearth rug the interposed screen the torn up papers the dispatch boxes with little labor sticking out of them like medicine bottles or dead game the pervading smell of leather and mahogany and a general bamboozling air of how not to do it the present barnacle holding mr clenum's card in his hand had a youthful aspect and the fluffiest little whisker perhaps that ever was seen such a downy tip was on his callow chin that he seemed half ledged like a young bird and a compassionate observer might have urged that if he had not singed the calves of his legs he would have died of cold he had a superior eyeglass dangling round his neck but unfortunately had such flat orbits to his eyes and such limp little eyelids that it wouldn't stick in when he put it up but kept tumbling out against his whiskered buttons with a click that discomposed him very much oh I say, look here my father's not in the way and won't be in the way today said barnacle junior is this anything that I can do click eyeglass down barnacle junior quite frightened and feeling all around himself but not able to find it you are very good said Arthur Clenham I wish however to see Mr barnacle but I say, look here you haven't got any appointment you know said barnacle junior by this time he had found the eyeglass and put it up again no said Arthur Clenham that is what I wish to have but I say, look here is this public business asked barnacle junior click again barnacle junior in that state of search after it that Mr Clenham felt it useless to reply at present is it said barnacle junior taking heed of his visitors brown face anything about tonnage or that sort of thing posing for a reply he opened his right eye with his hand and stuck his glass in it in that inflammatory manner that his eye began watering dreadfully no said Arthur it is nothing about tonnage and then look here is it private business I really am not sure it relates to Mr Dorit look here, I tell you what you had better call at our house if you are going that way 24 Mu Street Grovener Square my father's got a slight touch of the gout and is kept at home by it this guided young barnacle evidently going blind on his eye glass side but ashamed to make any further alteration in his painful arrangements thank you I will call there now good morning young barnacle seemed discomforted at this as not having at all expected him to go you are quite sure said barnacle junior calling after him when he got to the door unwilling wholly to relinquish what he had conceived that it is nothing about tonnage quite sure with such assurance and rather wondering what might have taken place if it had been anything about tonnage, Mr Clenum withdrew to pursue his inquiries Mu Street Grovener Square was not absolutely Grovener Square itself but it was very near it it was a hideous little street of dead wall, stables and dung hills with lofts over coach houses inhabited by coachmen's families who had a passion for drying clothes and decorating their window sills with miniature term pike gates the principal chimney sweep of that fashionable quarter lived at the blind end of Mu Street and the same corner contained an establishment much frequented about early morning and twilight for the purchase of wine bottles and kitchen stuff to lean against the dead wall in Mu Street while their proprietors were dining elsewhere and the docks of the neighborhood made appointments to meet in the same locality yet there were two or three small airless houses at the entrance end of Mu Street which went at enormous rents on account of there being abject hangers on to a fashionable situation and whenever one of these fearful little coupes was to be led which seldom happened or they were in great request the house agent advertised it as a gentlemanly residence in the most aristocratic part of town inhabited solely by the elite of the Beaumont if a gentlemanly residence coming strictly within this narrow margin had not been essential to the blood of the barnacles this particular branch would have had a pretty wide selection among let us say 10,000 houses offering 50 times the accommodation for a third of the money as it was Mr. Barnacle finding his gentlemanly residence extremely inconvenient and extremely dear always laid it as a public servant at the door of the country and used it as another instance of the country's parsimony Arthur Clenham came to a squeezed house with a ramshackle bowed front little dingy windows and a little dark area like a damn waistcoat pocket which he found to be number 24 Muse Street Grovener Square to the sense of smell the house was like a sort of bottle filled with a strong distillation of muse and when the footman opened the door he seemed to take the stopper out the footman was to the Grovener Square footmen what the house was to the Grovener Square houses admirable in his way his way was a back and a byway his gorgeousness was not unmixed with dirt and both in complexion and consistency he had suffered from the closeness of his pantry a sallow of labiness was upon him when he took the stopper out and presented the bottle to Mr. Clenham's nose be so good as to give that guard to Mr. Tight Barnacle and to say that I have just now seen the younger Mr. Barnacle who recommended me to call here the footman and look at as many large buttons with the Barnacle crest upon them on the flaps of his pockets as if he were the family strongbox and carried the plate and jewels about with him buttoned up pondered over the card a little then said Woken it required some judgement to do it without butting the inner hole door open and in the consequent mental confusion and physical darkness slipping down the kitchen stairs brought himself up safely on the door mat still the footman said Woken so the visitor followed him at the inner hole door another bottle seemed to be presented and another stopper taken out this second vial appeared to be filled with concentrated provisions and extractive sink from the pantry after a skirmish in the narrow passage occasioned by the footman's opening the door of the dismal dining room with confidence finding someone there with consternation and backing on the visitor with disorder the visitor was shut up pending his announcement in a close back parlor there he had an opportunity of refreshing himself with both the bottles at once looking out at a low blinding wall three feet off and speculating on the number of barnacle families within the bills of mortality who lived in such hatches his own free flunky choice Mr. Barnacle would see him would he walk upstairs he would and he did and in the drawing room with his leg on a rest he found Mr. Barnacle himself the express image and presentment of how not to do it Mr. Barnacle dated from a better time when the country was not so parsimonious and the circumlocution office was not so badgered he wound and wound folds of white cravat round his neck as he wound and wound folds of tape and paper round the neck of the country his wristbands and collar were oppressive his voice and manner were oppressive he had a large watch chain and bunch of seals a coat buttoned up to inconvenience a waistcoat buttoned up to inconvenience an unwrinkled pair of trousers a stiff pair of boots he was altogether splendid massive overpowering and impracticable he seemed to have been sitting for his portrait to Sir Thomas Lawrence all the days of his life Mr. Clenham said Mr. Barnacle be seated Mr. Clenham became seated you have called on me I believe said Mr. Barnacle at the circumlocution giving it the air of a word of about 5 and 20 syllables office I have taken that liberty Mr. Barnacle solemnly bent his head as who would say I do not deny that it is a liberty proceed to take another liberty and let me know your business allow me to observe that I have been for some years in China I am quite a stranger at home and have no personal motive or interest in the inquiry I am about to make Mr. Barnacle tapped his fingers on the table and as if you are now sitting for his portrait to a new and strange artist appeared to say to his visitor if you will be good enough to take me with my present lofty expression I shall feel obliged I have found a debtor in the Marshall sea prison of the name of Dorit who has been there many years I wish to investigate his confused affairs so far as to ascertain whether it may not be possible after this lapse of time to ameliorate his unhappy condition the name of Mr. tight Barnacle has been mentioned to me as representing some highly influential interest among his creditors am I correctly informed it being one of the principles of the Circumlocution office never on any account whatever to give a straightforward answer Mr. Barnacle said possibly on behalf of the crown may I ask or as private individual the Circumlocution department saw Mr. Barnacle replied may I have possibly recommended possibly I cannot say that some public claim against the solvent estate of a firm or co-partnership to which this person may have belonged should be enforced the question may have been in the course of official business referred to the Circumlocution department for its consideration the department may have either originated or confirmed a minute making that recommendation I assume this to be the case then the Circumlocution department said Mr. Barnacle said Mr. Barnacle is not responsible for any gentlemen's assumptions may I inquire how I can obtain official information as to the real state of the case it is competent said Mr. Barnacle to any member of the public mentioning that obscure body with reluctance as his natural enemy to memorialize the Circumlocution department such formalities as are required to be observed in so doing may be known on application to the proper branch of that department which is the proper branch I must refer you returned Mr. Barnacle ringing the bell to the department itself for a formal answer to that inquiry excuse my mentioning the department is accessible to the public Mr. Barnacle was always checked a little by that word of impertinent signification if the public approaches it according to the official forms if the public does not approach it according to the official forms the public has itself to blame Mr. Barnacle made him a severe bow as a wounded man of family a wounded man of place and a wounded man of a gentlemanly residence all rolled into one and he made Mr. Barnacle a bow and was shot out into Mew Street by the flabby footman having got to this pass he resolved as an exercise in perseverance to be take himself again to the Circumlocution office and try what satisfaction he could get there so he went back to the Circumlocution office and once more sent up his card to Barnacle Junior still indeed that he should come back again and who was eating mashed potatoes and gravy behind a partition by the whole fire he was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle Junior and found that young gentleman singeing his knees now and gaping his weary way on to four o'clock I say, look here you stick to us in a devil of a manner said Barnacle Junior looking over look here upon my soul you mustn't come into the place saying you want to know you know remonstrated Barnacle Junior turning about and putting up the eyeglass I want to know said Arthur Clenham who had made up his mind to persistence in one short form of words the precise nature of the claim of the crown against a prisoner of debt named Dorit I say, look here you really are going it at a great pace you know a god you haven't got an appointment said Barnacle Junior as if the thing were growing serious I want to know said Arthur and repeated his case Barnacle Junior stared at him until his eyeglass fell out and then put it in again and stared at him until it fell out again you have no right to come this sort of move and then observed with the greatest weakness look here what do you mean you told me you didn't know whether it was public business or not I have now ascertained that it is public business returned the suitor and I want to know and again repeated his monotonous inquiry its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a defenceless way look here upon my soul I mustn't come into the place saying you want to know you know the effect of that upon Arthur Clenham was to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words and tone as before the effect of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a wonderful spectacle of failure and helplessness well I tell you what look here you had better try the secretarial department he said at last he was singing it Jenkinson to the mashed potatoes messenger Mr. Wobbler Arthur Clenham who now felt that he had devoted himself to the storming of the Circumlucution office and must go through with it accompanied the messenger to another floor of the building where the functionary pointed out Mr. Wobbler's room he entered that apartment and found two gentlemen sitting face to face at a large and easy desk with whom was polishing a gun barrel on his pocket hunkerchief while the other was spreading marmalade on bread with a paper knife Mr. Wobbler inquired the suitor both gentlemen glanced at him and seemed surprised at his assurance so he went said the gentlemen with the gun barrel who was an extremely deliberate speaker down to his cousin's place and took the dog with him by rail inestimable dog flew at the port of fellow when he was put into the dog box and flew at the guard when he was taken out he got half a dozen fellows into a barn and a good supply of rats and timed the dog finding the dog able to do it immensely made the match and heavily backed the dog when the match came off some devil of a fellow was bought over sir dog was made drunk and out Mr. Wobbler inquired the suitor the gentleman who was spreading the marmalade returned without looking up from that occupation what did he call the dog called him lovely said the other gentleman said the dog was the perfect picture of the old aunt from whom he had expectations found him particularly like her when hocused Mr. Wobbler said the suitor both gentlemen laughed for some time the gentleman with the gun barrel considering it on inspection in a satisfactory state referred it to the other receiving confirmation of his views he fitted it into its place in the case before him and took out the stalk and polished that softly whistling Mr. Wobbler said the suitor what's the matter Mr. Wobbler with his mouth full I want to know said Arthur Clenham again mechanically said forth what he wanted to know can't inform you observed Mr. Wobbler apparently to his lunch never heard of it nothing at all to do with it better try Mr. Clive second door on the left in the next passage perhaps he will give me the same answer very likely don't know anything about it Mr. Wobbler the suitor turned away and had left the room when the gentleman with the gun called out Mr. Hello he looked in again shut the door after you you're letting in a devil of a draft here a few steps brought him to the second door on the left in the next passage in that room he found three gentlemen number one doing nothing particular number two doing nothing particular number three doing nothing particular they seemed however to be more directly concerned than the others had been in the effective execution of the great principal of the office as there was an awful inner apartment with a double door in which the circumlocution sages appeared to be assembled in council and out of which there was an imposing coming of papers and into which there was an imposing going of papers almost constantly wherein another gentleman number four was the active instrument I want to know said Arthur Clannum and again stated his case in the same barrel organ way as number one referred him to number two and as number two referred him to number three he had occasion to state it three times before they all referred him to number four to whom he stated it again number four was a vivacious well looking well dressed agreeable young fellow he was a barnacle but on the more sprightly side of the family and he said in an easy way oh you had better not bother yourself about it I think not bother myself about it no I recommend you not to bother yourself about it this was such a new point of view that Arthur Clannum found himself at a loss how to receive it you can if you like I can give you plenty of forms to fill up lots of them here you can have a dozen if you like but you'll never go on with it said number four would it be such hopeless work excuse me I am a stranger in England I don't say it would be hopeless return number four with a frank smile I don't express an opinion about that I only express an opinion about you I don't think you'd go on with it however of course you can do as you like I suppose there was a failure in the performance of a contract or something of that kind was there I really don't know well that you can find out then you'll find out what department the contract was in and then you'll find out all about it there I beg your pardon how shall I find out why you'll you'll ask till they tell you then you'll memorialize that department according to regular forms which you'll find out believe to memorialize this department if you get it which you may after a time that memorial must be entered in that department sent to be registered in this department sent back to be signed by that department sent back to be counter signed by this department to be regularly before that department you'll find out when the business passes through each of these stages by asking at both departments till they tell you but surely this is not the way to do the business Arthur Clenham could not help saying this airy young barnacle was quite entertained by his simplicity in supposing for a moment that it was this light in hand young barnacle knew perfectly that it was not this touch and go young barnacle had got up the department in a private secretary ship that he might be ready for any little bit of fat that came to hand and he fully understood the department to be a political diplomatic hocus-pocus piece of machinery for the assistance of the knobs in keeping off the snobs this dashing young barnacle in a word was likely to become a statesman and to make a figure when the business is regularly before that department whatever it is pursued this bright young barnacle then you can watch it from time to time through that department when it comes regularly before this department then you must watch it from time to time through this department we shall have to refer it right and left and when we refer it anywhere then you have to look it up when it comes back to us at any time then you had better look us up when it sticks anywhere to give it a jog when you write to another department about it and then to this department about it and don't hear anything satisfactory about it why then you had better keep on writing Arthur Clannum looked very doubtful indeed but I am obliged to you at any rate said he for your politeness not at all replied this engaging young barnacle try the thing and see how you like it you will be in your power to give it up at any time if you don't like it you had better take a lot of forms away with you give him a lot of forms with which instruction to number 2 this sparkling young barnacle took a fresh handful of papers from numbers 1 and 3 and carried them into the sanctuary to offer to the presiding idol of the circumlocution office Arthur Clannum put his forms in his pocket gloomily enough and went his way down the long stone passage and the long stone staircase he had come to the swing doors leading into the street and was waiting not over patiently for two people who were between him and them to pass out and let him follow when the voice of one of them struck familiarly on his ear he looked at the speaker and recognized Mr. Meagles Mr. Meagles was very red in the face redder than travel could have made him and colouring a short man who was with him said come out you rascal, come out it was such an unexpected hearing and it was also such an unexpected sight to see Mr. Meagles burst the swing doors open and emerge into the street with a short man who was of an unoffending appearance that Clannum stood still for the moment exchanging looks of surprise with a porter he followed however quickly and saw Mr. Meagles going down the street with his enemy at his side he soon came up with his older travelling companion and touched him on the back the choleric face which Mr. Meagles turned upon him smoothed when he saw who it was and he put out his friendly hand how are you said Mr. Meagles how do you do I have only just come over from abroad I am glad to see you and I am rejoiced to see you thank you Mrs. Meagles and your daughter are as well as possible said Mr. Meagles I only wish you had come upon me in a more prepossessing condition as to coolness though it was anything but a hot day Mr. Meagles was in a heated state that attracted the attention of the passersby more particularly as he leaned his back against the railing took off his hat and cravat and heartily rubbed his steaming head and face and his reddened ears and neck without the least regard for public opinion who said Mr. Meagles dressing again that's comfortable now I am a cooler you have been ruffled Mr. Meagles what is the matter wait a bit and I'll tell you have you leisure for a turn in the park has matches you please come along then you may well look at him his eyes towards the offender whom Mr. Meagles had so angrily colored here's something to look at that fellow is he was not much to look at either in point of size or in point of dress being merely a short, square, practical looking man whose hair had turned grey and in whose face and forehead there were deep lines of cogitation which looked as though they were carved in hardwood he was dressed in decent black a little rusty and had the appearance of a sagacious master in some handicraft he had a spectacle case in his hand which he turned over and over while he was thus in question with a certain free use of the thumb that is never seen but in a hand accustomed to tools you keep with us said Mr. Meagles in a threatening kind of way and I'll introduce you presently now then Clannum wondered within himself as they took the nearest way to the park what this unknown who complied in the gentlest manner could have been doing his appearance did not at all justify the suspicion that he had been detected in designs on Mr. Meagles pocket handkerchief nor had he any appearance of being quarrelsome or violent he was a quiet plain, steady man made no attempt to escape and seemed a little depressed neither ashamed nor repentant if you were a criminal offender you must surely be an incorrigible hypocrite and if you were no offender why should Mr. Meagles have collared him in the circumlocution office he perceived that the man was not a difficulty in his own mind alone but in Mr. Meagles is too for such conversation as they had together on the short way to the park was by no means well sustained and Mr. Meagles' eye always saw the man even when he spoke of something very different at length they being among the trees Mr. Meagles stopped short and said Mr. Clenham will you do me the favour to look at this man his name is Dois, Daniel Dois you wouldn't suppose this man to be a notorious rascal would you I certainly should not it was really a disconcerting question with the man there no 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 house breaking highway robbery larceny conspiracy fraud which should you say now I should say returned Arthur Clenham observing a faint smile in Daniel Dois' 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 Dois said Mr. Meagles is a smith and engineer he is not in a large way 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 or wasn't it a dozen said Mr. Meagles addressing Dois he is the most exasperating man in the world he never complains yes rather better than 12 years ago rather better said Mr. Meagles you mean rather worse well Mr. Clannum 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 all possible means it was not so difficult to believe after the morning's experience as Mr. Meagles supposed don't stand there Dois turning your spectacle case over and over cried Mr. Meagles but tell Mr. Clannum what you confessed to me I undoubtedly was made to feel said the inventor as if I had committed an offence in dancing attendance at the various offices I was always treated more or less as if it was a very bad offence I have frequently found it necessary to reflect on my own self-support that I really had not done anything to bring myself into the Newgate calendar but only wanted to effect a great saving and a great improvement there said Mr. Meagles judge whether I exaggerate now you'll be able to believe me when I tell you the rest of the case with this prelude Mr. Meagles went through the narrative the established narrative which has become tiresome the matter of cause narrative which we all know by heart how after interminable attendance and correspondence after infinite impertenences ignorances and insults my lords made a minute number 3472 allowing the culprit to make certain trials of his invention at his own expense how the trials were made in the presence of a board of six of whom two ancient members were too blind to see it two other ancient members were too deaf to hear it one other ancient member was too lame to get near it and the final ancient member was too pink-headed to look at it how there were more years more impertenences ignorances and insults how my lords then made a minute number 5103 whereby they resigned the business to the circumlocution office how the circumlocution office in cause of time took up the business as if it were a brand new thing of yesterday which had never been heard of before muddled the business addled the business tossed the business in a wet blanket how the impertenences ignorances and insults went through the multiplication table how there was a reference of the invention to three barnacles and a still-stalking who knew nothing about it into whose heads nothing could be hammered about it who got bored about it and reported physical impossibilities about it how the circumlocution office in a minute number 8740 so no reason to reverse the decision at which my lords had arrived how the circumlocution office being reminded that my lords had arrived at no decision shelved the business how there had been a final interview with the head of the circumlocution office that very morning and how the brazen head had spoken and had been upon the whole and under all the circumstances and looking at it from the various points of view of opinion that one of two causes was to be pursued in respect of the business that was to say either to leave it alone forever more or to begin it all over again upon which said Mr. Meagles as a practical man I then and there in that presence took Dois by the collar and told him it was plain to me that he was an infamous rascal and reasonable disturber of the government peace and took him away or by the collar that the very porter might know I was a practical man who appreciated the official estimate of such characters and here we are if that airy young barnacle had been there he would have frankly told them perhaps that the circumlocution office had achieved its function that what the barnacles had to do was to stick on to the national ship as long as they could that to trim the ship lighten the ship would be to knock them off that they could but be knocked off once and that if the ship went down with them yet sticking to it that was the ship's look out not theirs there said Mr. Meagles now you know all about Dois except which I own does not improve my state of mind that even now you don't hear him complain you must have great patience said Arthur Clannum looking at him with some wonder grateful barons no he returned I don't know that I have more than another man by the Lord you have more than I have though cried Mr. Meagles Dois smiled as he said to Clannum you see my experience of these things does not begin with myself it has been in my way to know a little about them from time to time mine is not a particular case I am not worse used than a hundred others who have put themselves in the same position than all the others I was going to say I don't know that I should find that a consolation if it were my case but I am very glad that you do understand me I don't say he replied in his steady planning way and looking into the distance before him as if his grey eye were measuring it that it's recompense for a man's hope but it's a certain sort of relief to know that I might have counted on this he spoke in that quiet deliberate manner and in that undertone which is often observable in mechanics who consider and adjust with great nicety it belonged to him like his suppleness of thumb or his peculiar way of tilting up his cat at the back every now and then as if he were contemplating some half finished work of his hand and thinking about it disappointed he went on as he walked between them under the trees yes no doubt I am disappointed hurt yes no doubt I am hurt that's only natural but what I mean when I say that people who put themselves in the same position are mostly used in the same way in England said Mr. Meagles oh of course I mean in England when they take their inventions into foreign countries that's quite different and that's the reason why so many go there Mr. Meagles very hot indeed again what I mean is that however this comes to be the regular way of our government it is its regular way have you ever heard of any projector or inventor who failed to find it all but inaccessible and whom it did not discourage and ill treat I cannot say that I ever have have you ever known it to be beforehand in the adoption of any useful thing ever known it to set an example of any useful kind I am a good deal older than my friend here said Mr. Meagles and I'll answer that never but we all three have known I expect said the inventor a pretty many cases of its fixed determination to be miles upon miles and years upon years behind the rest of us we've found out persisting in the use of things long superseded and after the better things were well known and generally taken up they all agreed upon that well then said Doys with a sigh as I know what such a metal will do at such a temperature and such a body under such a pressure so I may know if I will only consider how these great lords and gentlemen will certainly deal with such a matter as mine I have no right to be surprised with a head upon my shoulders and memory in it that I fall into the ranks with all who came before me I ought to have let it alone I have had a warning enough I am sure with that he put up his spectacle case and said to Arthur if I don't complain Mr. Clenham I can feel gratitude and I assure you that I feel it towards our mutual friend many is the day many is the way in which he has backed me staff and nonsense said Mr. Meagles Arthur could not but glance at Daniel Doys in the ensuing silence though it was evidently in the grain of his character and of his respect for his own case that he should abstain from idle murmuring it was evident that he had grown the older the sterner and the poorer for his long endeavor he could not but think what a blessed thing it would have been for this man if he had taken a lesson from the gentleman who was so kind as to take a nation's affairs in charge and had learned how not to do it Mr. Meagles was hot and despondent for about five minutes and then began to cool and clear up calm calm said he we shall not make this the better by being grim where do you think of going Dan I shall go back to the factory said Dan why then we'll all go back to the factory or walk in that direction returned Mr. Meagles cheerfully Mr. Clenham won't be deterred by its being in bleeding heart yard bleeding heart yard said Clenham I want to go there so much the better cried Mr. Meagles come along as they went along probably more than one thought that bleeding heart yard was no inappropriate destination for a man who had been in official correspondence with my lords and the barnacles and perhaps had a misgiving also that Britannia herself might come to look for lodgings in bleeding heart yard some ugly day or other if she overdid the circumlocution office end of chapter the tenth book the first this recording is in the public domain