prompt:
Chapter: Anybody may pass, any day, in the thronged thoroughfares of the
metropolis, some meagre, wrinkled, yellow old man (who might be supposed
        to have dropped from the stars, if there were any star in the Heavens
        dull enough to be suspected of casting off so feeble a spark), creeping
along with a scared air, as though bewildered and a little frightened
by the noise and bustle. This old man is always a little old man. If he
were ever a big old man, he has shrunk into a little old man; if he were
always a little old man, he has dwindled into a less old man. His coat
is a colour, and cut, that never was the mode anywhere, at any period.
Clearly, it was not made for him, or for any individual mortal. Some
wholesale contractor measured Fate for five thousand coats of such
quality, and Fate has lent this old coat to this old man, as one of a
long unfinished line of many old men. It has always large dull metal
buttons, similar to no other buttons. This old man wears a hat, a
thumbed and napless and yet an obdurate hat, which has never adapted
itself to the shape of his poor head. His coarse shirt and his coarse
neckcloth have no more individuality than his coat and hat; they have
the same character of not being his--of not being anybody's. Yet this
old man wears these clothes with a certain unaccustomed air of being
dressed and elaborated for the public ways; as though he passed the
greater part of his time in a nightcap and gown. And so, like the
country mouse in the second year of a famine, come to see the town
mouse, and timidly threading his way to the town-mouse's lodging through
a city of cats, this old man passes in the streets.

Sometimes, on holidays towards evening, he will be seen to walk with a
slightly increased infirmity, and his old eyes will glimmer with a moist
and marshy light. Then the little old man is drunk. A very small
measure will overset him; he may be bowled off his unsteady legs with
a half-pint pot. Some pitying acquaintance--chance acquaintance
very often--has warmed up his weakness with a treat of beer, and the
consequence will be the lapse of a longer time than usual before he
shall pass again. For the little old man is going home to the Workhouse;
and on his good behaviour they do not let him out often (though methinks
        they might, considering the few years he has before him to go out in,
        under the sun); and on his bad behaviour they shut him up closer than
ever in a grove of two score and nineteen more old men, every one of
whom smells of all the others.

Mrs Plornish's father,--a poor little reedy piping old gentleman, like
a worn-out bird; who had been in what he called the music-binding
business, and met with great misfortunes, and who had seldom been able
to make his way, or to see it or to pay it, or to do anything at all
with it but find it no thoroughfare,--had retired of his own accord to
the Workhouse which was appointed by law to be the Good Samaritan of his
district (without the twopence, which was bad political economy), on
the settlement of that execution which had carried Mr Plornish to the
Marshalsea College. Previous to his son-in-law's difficulties coming to
that head, Old Nandy (he was always so called in his legal Retreat, but
        he was Old Mr Nandy among the Bleeding Hearts) had sat in a corner of
the Plornish fireside, and taken his bite and sup out of the Plornish
cupboard. He still hoped to resume that domestic position when Fortune
should smile upon his son-in-law; in the meantime, while she preserved
an immovable countenance, he was, and resolved to remain, one of these
little old men in a grove of little old men with a community of flavour.

But no poverty in him, and no coat on him that never was the mode, and
no Old Men's Ward for his dwelling-place, could quench his daughter's
admiration. Mrs Plornish was as proud of her father's talents as she
could possibly have been if they had made him Lord Chancellor. She had
as firm a belief in the sweetness and propriety of his manners as she
could possibly have had if he had been Lord Chamberlain. The poor little
old man knew some pale and vapid little songs, long out of date, about
Chloe, and Phyllis, and Strephon being wounded by the son of Venus;
and for Mrs Plornish there was no such music at the Opera as the small
internal flutterings and chirpings wherein he would discharge himself
of these ditties, like a weak, little, broken barrel-organ, ground by
a baby. On his 'days out,' those flecks of light in his flat vista of
pollard old men,' it was at once Mrs Plornish's delight and sorrow,
        when he was strong with meat, and had taken his full halfpenny-worth of
        porter, to say, 'Sing us a song, Father.' Then he would give them Chloe,
        and if he were in pretty good spirits, Phyllis also--Strephon he had
        hardly been up to since he went into retirement--and then would Mrs
        Plornish declare she did believe there never was such a singer as
        Father, and wipe her eyes.

        If he had come from Court on these occasions, nay, if he had been the
        noble Refrigerator come home triumphantly from a foreign court to be
        presented and promoted on his last tremendous failure, Mrs Plornish
        could not have handed him with greater elevation about Bleeding Heart
        Yard. 'Here's Father,' she would say, presenting him to a neighbour.
        'Father will soon be home with us for good, now. Ain't Father looking
        well? Father's a sweeter singer than ever; you'd never have forgotten
        it, if you'd aheard him just now.' As to Mr Plornish, he had married
        these articles of belief in marrying Mr Nandy's daughter, and only
        wondered how it was that so gifted an old gentleman had not made a
        fortune. This he attributed, after much reflection, to his musical
        genius not having been scientifically developed in his youth. 'For why,'
        argued Mr Plornish, 'why go a-binding music when you've got it in
        yourself? That's where it is, I consider.'

        Old Nandy had a patron: one patron. He had a patron who in a certain
        sumptuous way--an apologetic way, as if he constantly took an admiring
        audience to witness that he really could not help being more free
        with this old fellow than they might have expected, on account of his
        simplicity and poverty--was mightily good to him. Old Nandy had
        been several times to the Marshalsea College, communicating with his
        son-in-law during his short durance there; and had happily acquired to
        himself, and had by degrees and in course of time much improved, the
        patronage of the Father of that national institution.

        Mr Dorrit was in the habit of receiving this old man as if the old man
        held of him in vassalage under some feudal tenure. He made little treats
        and teas for him, as if he came in with his homage from some outlying
        district where the tenantry were in a primitive state. It seemed as if
        there were moments when he could by no means have sworn but that the old
        man was an ancient retainer of his, who had been meritoriously faithful.
        When he mentioned him, he spoke of him casually as his old pensioner. He
        had a wonderful satisfaction in seeing him, and in commenting on his
        decayed condition after he was gone. It appeared to him amazing that he
        could hold up his head at all, poor creature. 'In the Workhouse, sir,
        the Union; no privacy, no visitors, no station, no respect, no
        speciality. Most deplorable!'

        It was Old Nandy's birthday, and they let him out. He said nothing about
        its being his birthday, or they might have kept him in; for such old
        men should not be born. He passed along the streets as usual to Bleeding
        Heart Yard, and had his dinner with his daughter and son-in-law, and
        gave them Phyllis. He had hardly concluded, when Little Dorrit looked in
        to see how they all were.

        'Miss Dorrit,' said Mrs Plornish, 'here's Father! Ain't he looking nice?
        And such voice he's in!'

        Little Dorrit gave him her hand, and smilingly said she had not seen him
        this long time.

        'No, they're rather hard on poor Father,' said Mrs Plornish with a
        lengthening face, 'and don't let him have half as much change and fresh
        air as would benefit him. But he'll soon be home for good, now. Won't
        you, Father?'

        'Yes, my dear, I hope so. In good time, please God.'

        Here Mr Plornish delivered himself of an oration which he invariably
        made, word for word the same, on all such opportunities. It was couched
        in the following terms:

        'John Edward Nandy. Sir. While there's a ounce of wittles or drink of
        any sort in this present roof, you're fully welcome to your share on
        it. While there's a handful of fire or a mouthful of bed in this present
        roof, you're fully welcome to your share on it. If so be as there should
        be nothing in this present roof, you should be as welcome to your share
        on it as if it was something, much or little. And this is what I mean
        and so I don't deceive you, and consequently which is to stand out is to
        entreat of you, and therefore why not do it?'

        To this lucid address, which Mr Plornish always delivered as if he had
        composed it (as no doubt he had) with enormous labour, Mrs Plornish's
        father pipingly replied:

        'I thank you kindly, Thomas, and I know your intentions well, which is
        the same I thank you kindly for. But no, Thomas. Until such times as
        it's not to take it out of your children's mouths, which take it is, and
        call it by what name you will it do remain and equally deprive, though
        may they come, and too soon they can not come, no Thomas, no!'

        Mrs Plornish, who had been turning her face a little away with a corner
        of her apron in her hand, brought herself back to the conversation again
        by telling Miss Dorrit that Father was going over the water to pay his
        respects, unless she knew of any reason why it might not be agreeable.

        Her answer was, 'I am going straight home, and if he will come with me
        I shall be so glad to take care of him--so glad,' said Little Dorrit,
        always thoughtful of the feelings of the weak, 'of his company.'

        'There, Father!' cried Mrs Plornish. 'Ain't you a gay young man to
        be going for a walk along with Miss Dorrit! Let me tie your
        neck-handkerchief into a regular good bow, for you're a regular beau
        yourself, Father, if ever there was one.'

        With this filial joke his daughter smartened him up, and gave him a
        loving hug, and stood at the door with her weak child in her arms, and
        her strong child tumbling down the steps, looking after her little old
        father as he toddled away with his arm under Little Dorrit's.

        They walked at a slow pace, and Little Dorrit took him by the Iron
        Bridge and sat him down there for a rest, and they looked over at the
        water and talked about the shipping, and the old man mentioned what he
        would do if he had a ship full of gold coming home to him (his plan was
                to take a noble lodging for the Plornishes and himself at a Tea Gardens,
                and live there all the rest of their lives, attended on by the waiter),
        and it was a special birthday of the old man. They were within five
        minutes of their destination, when, at the corner of her own street,
        they came upon Fanny in her new bonnet bound for the same port.

        'Why, good gracious me, Amy!' cried that young lady starting. 'You never
        mean it!'

        'Mean what, Fanny dear?'

        'Well! I could have believed a great deal of you,' returned the young
        lady with burning indignation, 'but I don't think even I could have
        believed this, of even you!'

        'Fanny!' cried Little Dorrit, wounded and astonished.

        'Oh! Don't Fanny me, you mean little thing, don't! The idea of coming
        along the open streets, in the broad light of day, with a Pauper!'
        (firing off the last word as if it were a ball from an air-gun).

        'O Fanny!'

        'I tell you not to Fanny me, for I'll not submit to it! I never knew
        such a thing. The way in which you are resolved and determined to
        disgrace us on all occasions, is really infamous. You bad little thing!'

        'Does it disgrace anybody,' said Little Dorrit, very gently, 'to take
        care of this poor old man?'

        'Yes, miss,' returned her sister, 'and you ought to know it does.
        And you do know it does, and you do it because you know it does. The
        principal pleasure of your life is to remind your family of their
        misfortunes. And the next great pleasure of your existence is to keep
        low company. But, however, if you have no sense of decency, I
        have. You'll please to allow me to go on the other side of the way,
        unmolested.'

        With this, she bounced across to the opposite pavement. The old
        disgrace, who had been deferentially bowing a pace or two off (for
                Little Dorrit had let his arm go in her wonder, when Fanny began), and
        who had been hustled and cursed by impatient passengers for stopping the
        way, rejoined his companion, rather giddy, and said, 'I hope nothing's
        wrong with your honoured father, Miss? I hope there's nothing the matter
        in the honoured family?'

        'No, no,' returned Little Dorrit. 'No, thank you. Give me your arm
        again, Mr Nandy. We shall soon be there now.'

        So she talked to him as she had talked before, and they came to the
        Lodge and found Mr Chivery on the lock, and went in. Now, it happened
        that the Father of the Marshalsea was sauntering towards the Lodge at
        the moment when they were coming out of it, entering the prison arm in
        arm. As the spectacle of their approach met his view, he displayed the
        utmost agitation and despondency of mind; and--altogether regardless of
        Old Nandy, who, making his reverence, stood with his hat in his hand, as
        he always did in that gracious presence--turned about, and hurried in at
        his own doorway and up the staircase.

        Leaving the old unfortunate, whom in an evil hour she had taken under
        her protection, with a hurried promise to return to him directly, Little
        Dorrit hastened after her father, and, on the staircase, found Fanny
        following her, and flouncing up with offended dignity. The three came
        into the room almost together; and the Father sat down in his chair,
        buried his face in his hands, and uttered a groan.

        'Of course,' said Fanny. 'Very proper. Poor, afflicted Pa! Now, I hope
        you believe me, Miss?'

        'What is it, father?' cried Little Dorrit, bending over him. 'Have I
        made you unhappy, father? Not I, I hope!'

        'You hope, indeed! I dare say! Oh, you'--Fanny paused for a sufficiently
        strong expression--'you Common-minded little Amy! You complete
        prison-child!'

        He stopped these angry reproaches with a wave of his hand, and sobbed
        out, raising his face and shaking his melancholy head at his younger
        daughter, 'Amy, I know that you are innocent in intention. But you
        have cut me to the soul.'

        'Innocent in intention!' the implacable Fanny struck in. 'Stuff in
        intention! Low in intention! Lowering of the family in intention!'

        'Father!' cried Little Dorrit, pale and trembling. 'I am very sorry.
        Pray forgive me. Tell me how it is, that I may not do it again!'

        'How it is, you prevaricating little piece of goods!' cried Fanny. 'You
        know how it is. I have told you already, so don't fly in the face of
        Providence by attempting to deny it!'

        'Hush! Amy,' said the father, passing his pocket-handkerchief several
        times across his face, and then grasping it convulsively in the hand
        that dropped across his knee, 'I have done what I could to keep you
        select here; I have done what I could to retain you a position here. I
        may have succeeded; I may not. You may know it; you may not. I give no
        opinion. I have endured everything here but humiliation. That I have
        happily been spared--until this day.'

        Here his convulsive grasp unclosed itself, and he put his
        pocket-handkerchief to his eyes again. Little Dorrit, on the ground
        beside him, with her imploring hand upon his arm, watched him
        remorsefully. Coming out of his fit of grief, he clenched his
        pocket-handkerchief once more.

        'Humiliation I have happily been spared until this day. Through all
        my troubles there has been that--Spirit in myself, and that--that
        submission to it, if I may use the term, in those about me, which has
        spared me--ha--humiliation. But this day, this minute, I have keenly
        felt it.'

        'Of course! How could it be otherwise?' exclaimed the irrepressible
        Fanny. 'Careering and prancing about with a Pauper!' (air-gun again).

        'But, dear father,' cried Little Dorrit, 'I don't justify myself for
        having wounded your dear heart--no! Heaven knows I don't!' She clasped
        her hands in quite an agony of distress. 'I do nothing but beg and pray
        you to be comforted and overlook it. But if I had not known that you
        were kind to the old man yourself, and took much notice of him, and were
        always glad to see him, I would not have come here with him, father, I
        would not, indeed. What I have been so unhappy as to do, I have done
        in mistake. I would not wilfully bring a tear to your eyes, dear love!'
        said Little Dorrit, her heart well-nigh broken, 'for anything the world
        could give me, or anything it could take away.'

        Fanny, with a partly angry and partly repentant sob, began to cry
        herself, and to say--as this young lady always said when she was half in
        passion and half out of it, half spiteful with herself and half spiteful
        with everybody else--that she wished she were dead.

        The Father of the Marshalsea in the meantime took his younger daughter
        to his breast, and patted her head.

        'There, there! Say no more, Amy, say no more, my child. I will forget it
        as soon as I can. I,' with hysterical cheerfulness, 'I--shall soon be
        able to dismiss it. It is perfectly true, my dear, that I am always glad
        to see my old pensioner--as such, as such--and that I do--ha--extend as
        much protection and kindness to the--hum--the bruised reed--I trust I
        may so call him without impropriety--as in my circumstances, I can. It
        is quite true that this is the case, my dear child. At the same
        time, I preserve in doing this, if I may--ha--if I may use the
        expression--Spirit. Becoming Spirit. And there are some things which
        are,' he stopped to sob, 'irreconcilable with that, and wound
        that--wound it deeply. It is not that I have seen my good Amy
        attentive, and--ha--condescending to my old pensioner--it is not _that_
        that hurts me. It is, if I am to close the painful subject by being
        explicit, that I have seen my child, my own child, my own daughter,
        coming into this College out of the public streets--smiling!
        smiling!--arm in arm with--O my God, a livery!'

        This reference to the coat of no cut and no time, the unfortunate
        gentleman gasped forth, in a scarcely audible voice, and with his
        clenched pocket-handkerchief raised in the air. His excited feelings
        might have found some further painful utterance, but for a knock at the
        door, which had been already twice repeated, and to which Fanny (still
                wishing herself dead, and indeed now going so far as to add, buried)
        cried 'Come in!'

        'Ah, Young John!' said the Father, in an altered and calmed voice. 'What
        is it, Young John?'

        'A letter for you, sir, being left in the Lodge just this minute, and a
        message with it, I thought, happening to be there myself, sir, I would
        bring it to your room.' The speaker's attention was much distracted by
        the piteous spectacle of Little Dorrit at her father's feet, with her
        head turned away.

        'Indeed, John? Thank you.'

        'The letter is from Mr Clennam, sir--it's the answer--and the message
        was, sir, that Mr Clennam also sent his compliments, and word that he
        would do himself the pleasure of calling this afternoon, hoping to see
        you, and likewise,' attention more distracted than before, 'Miss Amy.'

        'Oh!' As the Father glanced into the letter (there was a bank-note in
                it), he reddened a little, and patted Amy on the head afresh. 'Thank
        you, Young John. Quite right. Much obliged to you for your attention. No
        one waiting?'

        'No, sir, no one waiting.'

        'Thank you, John. How is your mother, Young John?'

        'Thank you, sir, she's not quite as well as we could wish--in fact, we
        none of us are, except father--but she's pretty well, sir.'

        'Say we sent our remembrances, will you? Say kind remembrances, if you
        please, Young John.'

        'Thank you, sir, I will.' And Mr Chivery junior went his way, having
        spontaneously composed on the spot an entirely new epitaph for himself,
        to the effect that Here lay the body of John Chivery, Who, Having
        at such a date, Beheld the idol of his life, In grief and tears, And
        feeling unable to bear the harrowing spectacle, Immediately repaired to
        the abode of his inconsolable parents, And terminated his existence by
        his own rash act.

        'There, there, Amy!' said the Father, when Young John had closed the
        door, 'let us say no more about it.' The last few minutes had improved
        his spirits remarkably, and he was quite lightsome. 'Where is my old
        pensioner all this while? We must not leave him by himself any longer,
        or he will begin to suppose he is not welcome, and that would pain me.
        Will you fetch him, my child, or shall I?'

        'If you wouldn't mind, father,' said Little Dorrit, trying to bring her
        sobbing to a close.

        'Certainly I will go, my dear. I forgot; your eyes are rather red.
        There! Cheer up, Amy. Don't be uneasy about me. I am quite myself again,
        my love, quite myself. Go to your room, Amy, and make yourself look
        comfortable and pleasant to receive Mr Clennam.'

        'I would rather stay in my own room, Father,' returned Little Dorrit,
        finding it more difficult than before to regain her composure. 'I would
        far rather not see Mr Clennam.'

        'Oh, fie, fie, my dear, that's folly. Mr Clennam is a very gentlemanly
        man--very gentlemanly. A little reserved at times; but I will say
        extremely gentlemanly. I couldn't think of your not being here to
        receive Mr Clennam, my dear, especially this afternoon. So go and
        freshen yourself up, Amy; go and freshen yourself up, like a good girl.'

        Thus directed, Little Dorrit dutifully rose and obeyed: only pausing
        for a moment as she went out of the room, to give her sister a kiss of
        reconciliation. Upon which, that young lady, feeling much harassed
        in her mind, and having for the time worn out the wish with which she
        generally relieved it, conceived and executed the brilliant idea of
        wishing Old Nandy dead, rather than that he should come bothering there
        like a disgusting, tiresome, wicked wretch, and making mischief between
        two sisters.

        The Father of the Marshalsea, even humming a tune, and wearing his black
        velvet cap a little on one side, so much improved were his spirits, went
        down into the yard, and found his old pensioner standing there hat in
        hand just within the gate, as he had stood all this time. 'Come, Nandy!'
        said he, with great suavity. 'Come up-stairs, Nandy; you know the way;
        why don't you come up-stairs?' He went the length, on this occasion,
        of giving him his hand and saying, 'How are you, Nandy? Are you pretty
        well?' To which that vocalist returned, 'I thank you, honoured sir, I am
        all the better for seeing your honour.' As they went along the yard, the
        Father of the Marshalsea presented him to a Collegian of recent date.
        'An old acquaintance of mine, sir, an old pensioner.' And then said, 'Be
        covered, my good Nandy; put your hat on,' with great consideration.

        His patronage did not stop here; for he charged Maggy to get the tea
        ready, and instructed her to buy certain tea-cakes, fresh butter,
        eggs, cold ham, and shrimps: to purchase which collation he gave her a
        bank-note for ten pounds, laying strict injunctions on her to be careful
        of the change. These preparations were in an advanced stage of progress,
        and his daughter Amy had come back with her work, when Clennam presented
        himself; whom he most graciously received, and besought to join their
        meal.

        'Amy, my love, you know Mr Clennam even better than I have the happiness
        of doing. Fanny, my dear, you are acquainted with Mr Clennam.' Fanny
        acknowledged him haughtily; the position she tacitly took up in all such
        cases being that there was a vast conspiracy to insult the family by not
        understanding it, or sufficiently deferring to it, and here was one of
        the conspirators. 'This, Mr Clennam, you must know, is an old pensioner
        of mine, Old Nandy, a very faithful old man.' (He always spoke of him as
                an object of great antiquity, but he was two or three years younger than
                himself.) 'Let me see. You know Plornish, I think? I think my daughter
        Amy has mentioned to me that you know poor Plornish?'

        'O yes!' said Arthur Clennam.

        'Well, sir, this is Mrs Plornish's father.'

        'Indeed? I am glad to see him.'

        'You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, Mr
        Clennam.'

        'I hope I shall come to know them through knowing him,' said Arthur,
        secretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure.

        'It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends, who are
        always glad to see him,' observed the Father of the Marshalsea. Then he
        added behind his hand, ('Union, poor old fellow. Out for the day.')

        By this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread
        the board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather and the prison
        very close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed. 'If Maggy
        will spread that newspaper on the window-sill, my dear,' remarked the
        Father complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, 'my old
        pensioner can have his tea there, while we are having ours.'

        So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in
        width, standard measure, Mrs Plornish's father was handsomely regaled.
        Clennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that
        other Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of
        its many wonders.

        The most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he
        remarked on the pensioner's infirmities and failings, as if he were
        a gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the decline of the
        harmless animal he exhibited.

        'Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy? Why, how slow you are! (His last
                teeth,' he explained to the company, 'are going, poor old boy.')

        At another time, he said, 'No shrimps, Nandy?' and on his not instantly
        replying, observed, ('His hearing is becoming very defective. He'll be
                deaf directly.')

        At another time he asked him, 'Do you walk much, Nandy, about the yard
        within the walls of that place of yours?'

        'No, sir; no. I haven't any great liking for that.'

        'No, to be sure,' he assented. 'Very natural.' Then he privately
        informed the circle ('Legs going.')

        Once he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked him
        anything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild was?

        'John Edward,' said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork
        to consider. 'How old, sir? Let me think now.'

        The Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead ('Memory weak.')

        'John Edward, sir? Well, I really forget. I couldn't say at this minute,
        sir, whether it's two and two months, or whether it's two and five
        months. It's one or the other.'

        'Don't distress yourself by worrying your mind about it,' he returned,
        with infinite forbearance. ('Faculties evidently decaying--old man rusts
                in the life he leads!')

        The more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in the
        pensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got out of
        his chair after tea to bid the pensioner good-bye, on his intimating
        that he feared, honoured sir, his time was running out, he made himself
        look as erect and strong as possible.

        'We don't call this a shilling, Nandy, you know,' he said, putting one
        in his hand. 'We call it tobacco.'

        'Honoured sir, I thank you. It shall buy tobacco. My thanks and duty to
        Miss Amy and Miss Fanny. I wish you good night, Mr Clennam.'

        'And mind you don't forget us, you know, Nandy,' said the Father. 'You
        must come again, mind, whenever you have an afternoon. You must not come
        out without seeing us, or we shall be jealous. Good night, Nandy. Be
        very careful how you descend the stairs, Nandy; they are rather uneven
        and worn.' With that he stood on the landing, watching the old man down:
        and when he came into the room again, said, with a solemn satisfaction
        on him, 'A melancholy sight that, Mr Clennam, though one has the
        consolation of knowing that he doesn't feel it himself. The poor old
        fellow is a dismal wreck. Spirit broken and gone--pulverised--crushed
        out of him, sir, completely!'

        As Clennam had a purpose in remaining, he said what he could responsive
        to these sentiments, and stood at the window with their enunciator,
        while Maggy and her Little Mother washed the tea-service and cleared it
        away. He noticed that his companion stood at the window with the air of
        an affable and accessible Sovereign, and that, when any of his people in
        the yard below looked up, his recognition of their salutes just stopped
        short of a blessing.

        When Little Dorrit had her work on the table, and Maggy hers on the
        bedstead, Fanny fell to tying her bonnet as a preliminary to her
        departure. Arthur, still having his purpose, still remained. At this
        time the door opened, without any notice, and Mr Tip came in. He kissed
        Amy as she started up to meet him, nodded to Fanny, nodded to his
        father, gloomed on the visitor without further recognition, and sat
        down.

        'Tip, dear,' said Little Dorrit, mildly, shocked by this, 'don't you
        see--'

        'Yes, I see, Amy. If you refer to the presence of any visitor you have
        here--I say, if you refer to that,' answered Tip, jerking his head with
        emphasis towards his shoulder nearest Clennam, 'I see!'

        'Is that all you say?'

        'That's all I say. And I suppose,' added the lofty young man, after a
        moment's pause, 'that visitor will understand me, when I say that's all
        I say. In short, I suppose the visitor will understand that he hasn't
        used me like a gentleman.'

        'I do not understand that,' observed the obnoxious personage referred to
        with tranquillity.

        'No? Why, then, to make it clearer to you, sir, I beg to let you know
        that when I address what I call a properly-worded appeal, and an urgent
        appeal, and a delicate appeal, to an individual, for a small temporary
        accommodation, easily within his power--easily within his power,
        mind!--and when that individual writes back word to me that he begs to
        be excused, I consider that he doesn't treat me like a gentleman.'

        The Father of the Marshalsea, who had surveyed his son in silence, no
        sooner heard this sentiment, than he began in angry voice:--

        'How dare you--' But his son stopped him.

        'Now, don't ask me how I dare, father, because that's bosh. As to the
        fact of the line of conduct I choose to adopt towards the individual
        present, you ought to be proud of my showing a proper spirit.'

        'I should think so!' cried Fanny.

        'A proper spirit?' said the Father. 'Yes, a proper spirit; a becoming
        spirit. Is it come to this that my son teaches me--_me_--spirit!'

        'Now, don't let us bother about it, father, or have any row on the
        subject. I have fully made up my mind that the individual present has
        not treated me like a gentleman. And there's an end of it.'

        'But there is not an end of it, sir,' returned the Father. 'But there
        shall not be an end of it. You have made up your mind? You have made up
        your mind?'

        'Yes, _I_ have. What's the good of keeping on like that?'

        'Because,' returned the Father, in a great heat, 'you had no right to
        make up your mind to what is monstrous, to what is--ha--immoral, to what
        is--hum--parricidal. No, Mr Clennam, I beg, sir. Don't ask me to desist;
        there is a--hum--a general principle involved here, which rises even
        above considerations of--ha--hospitality. I object to the assertion made
        by my son. I--ha--I personally repel it.'

        'Why, what is it to you, father?' returned the son, over his shoulder.

        'What is it to me, sir? I have a--hum--a spirit, sir, that will not
        endure it. I,' he took out his pocket-handkerchief again and dabbed his
        face. 'I am outraged and insulted by it. Let me suppose the case that I
        myself may at a certain time--ha--or times, have made a--hum--an appeal,
        and a properly-worded appeal, and a delicate appeal, and an urgent
        appeal to some individual for a small temporary accommodation. Let me
        suppose that that accommodation could have been easily extended, and was
        not extended, and that that individual informed me that he begged to
        be excused. Am I to be told by my own son, that I therefore received
        treatment not due to a gentleman, and that I--ha--I submitted to it?'

        His daughter Amy gently tried to calm him, but he would not on any
        account be calmed. He said his spirit was up, and wouldn't endure this.

        Was he to be told that, he wished to know again, by his own son on his
        own hearth, to his own face? Was that humiliation to be put upon him by
        his own blood?

        'You are putting it on yourself, father, and getting into all this
        injury of your own accord!' said the young gentleman morosely. 'What I
        have made up my mind about has nothing to do with you. What I said had
        nothing to do with you. Why need you go trying on other people's hats?'

        'I reply it has everything to do with me,' returned the Father. 'I point
        out to you, sir, with indignation, that--hum--the--ha--delicacy and
        peculiarity of your father's position should strike you dumb, sir, if
        nothing else should, in laying down such--ha--such unnatural principles.
        Besides; if you are not filial, sir, if you discard that duty, you
        are at least--hum--not a Christian? Are you--ha--an Atheist? And is it
        Christian, let me ask you, to stigmatise and denounce an individual
        for begging to be excused this time, when the same individual
        may--ha--respond with the required accommodation next time? Is it the
        part of a Christian not to--hum--not to try him again?' He had worked
        himself into quite a religious glow and fervour.

        'I see precious well,' said Mr Tip, rising, 'that I shall get no
        sensible or fair argument here to-night, and so the best thing I can do
        is to cut. Good night, Amy. Don't be vexed. I am very sorry it happens
        here, and you here, upon my soul I am; but I can't altogether part with
        my spirit, even for your sake, old girl.'

        With those words he put on his hat and went out, accompanied by Miss
        Fanny; who did not consider it spirited on her part to take leave of
        Clennam with any less opposing demonstration than a stare, importing
        that she had always known him for one of the large body of conspirators.

        When they were gone, the Father of the Marshalsea was at first inclined
        to sink into despondency again, and would have done so, but that a
        gentleman opportunely came up within a minute or two to attend him to
        the Snuggery. It was the gentleman Clennam had seen on the night of his
        own accidental detention there, who had that impalpable grievance about
        the misappropriated Fund on which the Marshal was supposed to batten.
        He presented himself as deputation to escort the Father to the Chair, it
        being an occasion on which he had promised to preside over the assembled
        Collegians in the enjoyment of a little Harmony.

        'Such, you see, Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'are the incongruities
        of my position here. But a public duty! No man, I am sure, would more
        readily recognise a public duty than yourself.'

        Clennam besought him not to delay a moment.

        'Amy, my dear, if you can persuade Mr Clennam to stay longer, I can
        leave the honours of our poor apology for an establishment with
        confidence in your hands, and perhaps you may do something towards
        erasing from Mr Clennam's mind the--ha--untoward and unpleasant
        circumstance which has occurred since tea-time.'

        Clennam assured him that it had made no impression on his mind, and
        therefore required no erasure.

        'My dear sir,' said the Father, with a removal of his black cap and a
        grasp of Clennam's hand, combining to express the safe receipt of his
        note and enclosure that afternoon, 'Heaven ever bless you!'

        So, at last, Clennam's purpose in remaining was attained, and he could
        speak to Little Dorrit with nobody by. Maggy counted as nobody, and she
        was by.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: So there's a sad, decrepit old dude wandering around the streets. He's clearly from the workhouse. Brain snack: Workhouses were places where poor people who couldn't support themselves were sent to basically be worked to death. Why? Well, let's do a quick rundown of England in the 19th century. No welfare? Check. No Medicare/Medicaid? Check. No social support for people at the end of life? Check. No old folks' homes? Check. So what to do with all the poor old people? Call them immoral, lazy, and deserving of their fate - and lock them up in workhouses. Yikes, right? So back to our story. Who is this sad old guy? He's Mrs. Plornish's dad, Old Mr. Nandy. He doesn't want to be a burden on his kids and grandkids, so he voluntarily goes to the workhouse, which is basically like a prison. They only let him out for special holidays - today, for example, it's his birthday. Mrs. Plornish adores her dad. He still sings a little bit and she is totally captivated listening to him. It's actually really sweet and super-sad. Mr. Nandy runs into Little Dorrit at the Plornishes, and she offers to escort him to the Marshalsea to see Dorrit. Apparently they know each other. Actually scratch that - apparently Dorrit likes to pretend that Nandy is some kind of old servant or vassal who comes out of loyalty to see his old master. Oh yeah, that's a whole world of nonsense right there, but Dorrit is nothing if not delusional. On the way to the Marshalsea, Little Dorrit and Nandy run into Fanny, who totally loses it at the sight of them. How dare Little Dorrit walk in the company of someone so poor! Fanny claims that this is somehow degrading to the Dorrit family. At the prison, Dorrit yells at Little Dorrit for the same thing. He and Fanny gang up on her and accuse her of wanting to drag the family's name through the mud. OK, hang on a sec - are you getting how totally nuts this is? The Dorrits are in prison! They have been for years! For being so deep in debt and so poor that the Dorrit girls have to work for a living - scandalous back then! But just in the nick of time, Arthur saves the day. A letter comes from him, with some money for Dorrit . Dorrit cheers up, forgives Amy, and gets Nandy to come upstairs for a visit. Arthur also shows up. Amy wants to leave and not have to see him, but Dorrit makes her stay. Dorrit's main pleasure in life is pointing out how decrepit old Nandy is, which is also sort of ludicrous, because Nandy is actually a few years younger than Dorrit himself. But still, to each his own. After the meal is over, Dorrit walks Nandy out, then stands at the window of his room looking down on the crowd like a king or a pope. Tip comes in and snubs Arthur rudely. When Little Dorrit asks why, Tip says that by not sending him money, Arthur has insulted him. Talk about a sense of entitlement! Dorrit gets mad at this, although it's not clear why. Shmoop thinks it might be because: 1) he's angry that Tip is also writing begging letters to Arthur, or 2) he's angry that Tip is insulting the one rich-ish person they know, or 3) Dorrit at least got some money out of Arthur and he's afraid Tip's rudeness will put an end to that. Tip leaves. Dorrit asks Little Dorrit to hang out with Arthur and smooth things over.


prompt:
Chapter: Maggy sat at her work in her great white cap with its quantity of opaque
frilling hiding what profile she had (she had none to spare), and her
serviceable eye brought to bear upon her occupation, on the window side
of the room. What with her flapping cap, and what with her unserviceable
eye, she was quite partitioned off from her Little Mother, whose seat
was opposite the window. The tread and shuffle of feet on the pavement
of the yard had much diminished since the taking of the Chair, the tide
of Collegians having set strongly in the direction of Harmony. Some few
who had no music in their souls, or no money in their pockets, dawdled
about; and the old spectacle of the visitor-wife and the depressed
unseasoned prisoner still lingered in corners, as broken cobwebs and
such unsightly discomforts draggle in corners of other places. It was
the quietest time the College knew, saving the night hours when the
Collegians took the benefit of the act of sleep. The occasional rattle
of applause upon the tables of the Snuggery, denoted the successful
termination of a morsel of Harmony; or the responsive acceptance, by
the united children, of some toast or sentiment offered to them by their
Father. Occasionally, a vocal strain more sonorous than the generality
informed the listener that some boastful bass was in blue water, or in
the hunting field, or with the reindeer, or on the mountain, or among
the heather; but the Marshal of the Marshalsea knew better, and had got
him hard and fast.

As Arthur Clennam moved to sit down by the side of Little Dorrit, she
trembled so that she had much ado to hold her needle. Clennam gently
put his hand upon her work, and said, 'Dear Little Dorrit, let me lay it
down.'

She yielded it to him, and he put it aside. Her hands were then
nervously clasping together, but he took one of them.

'How seldom I have seen you lately, Little Dorrit!'

'I have been busy, sir.'

'But I heard only to-day,' said Clennam, 'by mere accident, of your
having been with those good people close by me. Why not come to me,
       then?'

       'I--I don't know. Or rather, I thought you might be busy too. You
       generally are now, are you not?'

       He saw her trembling little form and her downcast face, and the eyes
       that drooped the moment they were raised to his--he saw them almost with
       as much concern as tenderness.

       'My child, your manner is so changed!'

       The trembling was now quite beyond her control. Softly withdrawing her
       hand, and laying it in her other hand, she sat before him with her head
       bent and her whole form trembling.

       'My own Little Dorrit,' said Clennam, compassionately.

       She burst into tears. Maggy looked round of a sudden, and stared for at
       least a minute; but did not interpose. Clennam waited some little while
       before he spoke again.

       'I cannot bear,' he said then, 'to see you weep; but I hope this is a
       relief to an overcharged heart.'

       'Yes it is, sir. Nothing but that.'

       'Well, well! I feared you would think too much of what passed here just
       now. It is of no moment; not the least. I am only unfortunate to have
       come in the way. Let it go by with these tears. It is not worth one of
       them. One of them? Such an idle thing should be repeated, with my glad
       consent, fifty times a day, to save you a moment's heart-ache, Little
       Dorrit.'

       She had taken courage now, and answered, far more in her usual manner,
       'You are so good! But even if there was nothing else in it to be sorry
       for and ashamed of, it is such a bad return to you--'

       'Hush!' said Clennam, smiling and touching her lips with his hand.
       'Forgetfulness in you who remember so many and so much, would be new
       indeed. Shall I remind you that I am not, and that I never was, anything
       but the friend whom you agreed to trust? No. You remember it, don't
       you?'

       'I try to do so, or I should have broken the promise just now, when my
       mistaken brother was here. You will consider his bringing-up in this
       place, and will not judge him hardly, poor fellow, I know!' In raising
       her eyes with these words, she observed his face more nearly than she
       had done yet, and said, with a quick change of tone, 'You have not been
       ill, Mr Clennam?'

       'No.'

       'Nor tried? Nor hurt?' she asked him, anxiously.

       It fell to Clennam now, to be not quite certain how to answer. He said
       in reply:

       'To speak the truth, I have been a little troubled, but it is over.
       Do I show it so plainly? I ought to have more fortitude and self-command
       than that. I thought I had. I must learn them of you. Who could teach me
       better!'

       He never thought that she saw in him what no one else could see. He
       never thought that in the whole world there were no other eyes that
       looked upon him with the same light and strength as hers.

       'But it brings me to something that I wish to say,' he continued, 'and
       therefore I will not quarrel even with my own face for telling tales
       and being unfaithful to me. Besides, it is a privilege and pleasure to
       confide in my Little Dorrit. Let me confess then, that, forgetting how
       grave I was, and how old I was, and how the time for such things had
       gone by me with the many years of sameness and little happiness that
       made up my long life far away, without marking it--that, forgetting all
       this, I fancied I loved some one.'

       'Do I know her, sir?' asked Little Dorrit.

       'No, my child.'

       'Not the lady who has been kind to me for your sake?'

       'Flora. No, no. Do you think--'

       'I never quite thought so,' said Little Dorrit, more to herself than
       him. 'I did wonder at it a little.'

       'Well!' said Clennam, abiding by the feeling that had fallen on him in
       the avenue on the night of the roses, the feeling that he was an
       older man, who had done with that tender part of life, 'I found out my
       mistake, and I thought about it a little--in short, a good deal--and got
       wiser. Being wiser, I counted up my years and considered what I am, and
       looked back, and looked forward, and found that I should soon be grey. I
       found that I had climbed the hill, and passed the level ground upon the
       top, and was descending quickly.'

       If he had known the sharpness of the pain he caused the patient heart,
       in speaking thus! While doing it, too, with the purpose of easing and
       serving her.

       'I found that the day when any such thing would have been graceful in
       me, or good in me, or hopeful or happy for me or any one in connection
       with me, was gone, and would never shine again.'

       O! If he had known, if he had known! If he could have seen the dagger in
       his hand, and the cruel wounds it struck in the faithful bleeding breast
       of his Little Dorrit!

       'All that is over, and I have turned my face from it. Why do I speak of
       this to Little Dorrit? Why do I show you, my child, the space of years
       that there is between us, and recall to you that I have passed, by the
       amount of your whole life, the time that is present to you?'

       'Because you trust me, I hope. Because you know that nothing can touch
       you without touching me; that nothing can make you happy or unhappy, but
       it must make me, who am so grateful to you, the same.'

       He heard the thrill in her voice, he saw her earnest face, he saw her
       clear true eyes, he saw the quickened bosom that would have joyfully
       thrown itself before him to receive a mortal wound directed at his
       breast, with the dying cry, 'I love him!' and the remotest suspicion
       of the truth never dawned upon his mind. No. He saw the devoted little
       creature with her worn shoes, in her common dress, in her jail-home; a
       slender child in body, a strong heroine in soul; and the light of her
       domestic story made all else dark to him.

       'For those reasons assuredly, Little Dorrit, but for another too. So
       far removed, so different, and so much older, I am the better fitted for
       your friend and adviser. I mean, I am the more easily to be trusted;
       and any little constraint that you might feel with another, may vanish
       before me. Why have you kept so retired from me? Tell me.'

       'I am better here. My place and use are here. I am much better here,'
       said Little Dorrit, faintly.

       'So you said that day upon the bridge. I thought of it much afterwards.
       Have you no secret you could entrust to me, with hope and comfort, if
       you would!'

       'Secret? No, I have no secret,' said Little Dorrit in some trouble.

       They had been speaking in low voices; more because it was natural to
       what they said to adopt that tone, than with any care to reserve it from
       Maggy at her work. All of a sudden Maggy stared again, and this time
       spoke:

       'I say! Little Mother!'

       'Yes, Maggy.'

       'If you an't got no secret of your own to tell him, tell him that about
       the Princess. _She_ had a secret, you know.'

       'The Princess had a secret?' said Clennam, in some surprise. 'What
       Princess was that, Maggy?'

       'Lor! How you do go and bother a gal of ten,' said Maggy, 'catching the
       poor thing up in that way. Whoever said the Princess had a secret? _I_
       never said so.'

       'I beg your pardon. I thought you did.'

       'No, I didn't. How could I, when it was her as wanted to find it out? It
       was the little woman as had the secret, and she was always a spinning at
       her wheel. And so she says to her, why do you keep it there? And so the
       t'other one says to her, no I don't; and so the t'other one says to her,
       yes you do; and then they both goes to the cupboard, and there it is.
       And she wouldn't go into the Hospital, and so she died. _You_ know, Little
       Mother; tell him that. For it was a reg'lar good secret, that was!' cried
       Maggy, hugging herself.

       Arthur looked at Little Dorrit for help to comprehend this, and was
       struck by seeing her so timid and red. But, when she told him that it
       was only a Fairy Tale she had one day made up for Maggy, and that there
       was nothing in it which she wouldn't be ashamed to tell again to anybody
       else, even if she could remember it, he left the subject where it was.

       However, he returned to his own subject by first entreating her to see
       him oftener, and to remember that it was impossible to have a stronger
       interest in her welfare than he had, or to be more set upon promoting it
       than he was. When she answered fervently, she well knew that, she never
       forgot it, he touched upon his second and more delicate point--the
       suspicion he had formed.

       'Little Dorrit,' he said, taking her hand again, and speaking lower than
       he had spoken yet, so that even Maggy in the small room could not hear
       him, 'another word. I have wanted very much to say this to you; I have
       tried for opportunities. Don't mind me, who, for the matter of years,
       might be your father or your uncle. Always think of me as quite an
       old man. I know that all your devotion centres in this room, and
       that nothing to the last will ever tempt you away from the duties you
       discharge here. If I were not sure of it, I should, before now, have
       implored you, and implored your father, to let me make some provision
       for you in a more suitable place. But you may have an interest--I will
       not say, now, though even that might be--may have, at another time,
       an interest in some one else; an interest not incompatible with your
       affection here.'

       She was very, very pale, and silently shook her head.

       'It may be, dear Little Dorrit.'

       'No. No. No.' She shook her head, after each slow repetition of
       the word, with an air of quiet desolation that he remembered long
       afterwards. The time came when he remembered it well, long afterwards,
       within those prison walls; within that very room.

       'But, if it ever should be, tell me so, my dear child. Entrust the truth
       to me, point out the object of such an interest to me, and I will try
       with all the zeal, and honour, and friendship and respect that I feel
       for you, good Little Dorrit of my heart, to do you a lasting service.'

       'O thank you, thank you! But, O no, O no, O no!' She said this, looking
       at him with her work-worn hands folded together, and in the same
       resigned accents as before.

       'I press for no confidence now. I only ask you to repose unhesitating
       trust in me.'

       'Can I do less than that, when you are so good!'

       'Then you will trust me fully? Will have no secret unhappiness, or
       anxiety, concealed from me?'

       'Almost none.'

       'And you have none now?'

       She shook her head. But she was very pale.

       'When I lie down to-night, and my thoughts come back--as they will, for
       they do every night, even when I have not seen you--to this sad place, I
       may believe that there is no grief beyond this room, now, and its usual
       occupants, which preys on Little Dorrit's mind?'

       She seemed to catch at these words--that he remembered, too, long
       afterwards--and said, more brightly, 'Yes, Mr Clennam; yes, you may!'

       The crazy staircase, usually not slow to give notice when any one was
       coming up or down, here creaked under a quick tread, and a further sound
       was heard upon it, as if a little steam-engine with more steam than it
       knew what to do with, were working towards the room. As it approached,
       which it did very rapidly, it laboured with increased energy; and,
       after knocking at the door, it sounded as if it were stooping down and
       snorting in at the keyhole.

       Before Maggy could open the door, Mr Pancks, opening it from without,
       stood without a hat and with his bare head in the wildest condition,
       looking at Clennam and Little Dorrit, over her shoulder. He had a
       lighted cigar in his hand, and brought with him airs of ale and tobacco
       smoke.

       'Pancks the gipsy,' he observed out of breath, 'fortune-telling.'

       He stood dingily smiling, and breathing hard at them, with a most
       curious air; as if, instead of being his proprietor's grubber, he were
       the triumphant proprietor of the Marshalsea, the Marshal, all the
       turnkeys, and all the Collegians. In his great self-satisfaction he put
       his cigar to his lips (being evidently no smoker), and took such a pull
       at it, with his right eye shut up tight for the purpose, that he
       underwent a convulsion of shuddering and choking. But even in the midst
       of that paroxysm, he still essayed to repeat his favourite introduction
       of himself, 'Pa-ancks the gi-ipsy, fortune-telling.'

       'I am spending the evening with the rest of 'em,' said Pancks. 'I've
       been singing. I've been taking a part in White sand and grey sand.
       _I_ don't know anything about it. Never mind. I'll take any part in
       anything. It's all the same, if you're loud enough.'

       At first Clennam supposed him to be intoxicated. But he soon perceived
       that though he might be a little the worse (or better) for ale, the
       staple of his excitement was not brewed from malt, or distilled from any
       grain or berry.

       'How d'ye do, Miss Dorrit?' said Pancks. 'I thought you wouldn't mind my
       running round, and looking in for a moment. Mr Clennam I heard was here,
       from Mr Dorrit. How are you, Sir?'

       Clennam thanked him, and said he was glad to see him so gay.

       'Gay!' said Pancks. 'I'm in wonderful feather, sir. I can't stop a
       minute, or I shall be missed, and I don't want 'em to miss me.--Eh, Miss
       Dorrit?'

       He seemed to have an insatiate delight in appealing to her and looking
       at her; excitedly sticking his hair up at the same moment, like a dark
       species of cockatoo.

       'I haven't been here half an hour. I knew Mr Dorrit was in the chair,
       and I said, "I'll go and support him!" I ought to be down in Bleeding
       Heart Yard by rights; but I can worry them to-morrow.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'

       His little black eyes sparkled electrically. His very hair seemed to
       sparkle as he roughened it. He was in that highly-charged state that one
       might have expected to draw sparks and snaps from him by presenting a
       knuckle to any part of his figure.

       'Capital company here,' said Pancks.--'Eh, Miss Dorrit?'

       She was half afraid of him, and irresolute what to say. He laughed, with
       a nod towards Clennam.

       'Don't mind him, Miss Dorrit. He's one of us. We agreed that you
       shouldn't take on to mind me before people, but we didn't mean Mr
       Clennam. He's one of us. He's in it. An't you, Mr Clennam?--Eh, Miss
       Dorrit?'

       The excitement of this strange creature was fast communicating itself to
       Clennam. Little Dorrit with amazement, saw this, and observed that they
       exchanged quick looks.

       'I was making a remark,' said Pancks, 'but I declare I forget what
       it was. Oh, I know! Capital company here. I've been treating 'em all
       round.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'

       'Very generous of you,' she returned, noticing another of the quick
       looks between the two.

       'Not at all,' said Pancks. 'Don't mention it. I'm coming into my
       property, that's the fact. I can afford to be liberal. I think I'll give
       'em a treat here. Tables laid in the yard. Bread in stacks. Pipes in
       faggots. Tobacco in hayloads. Roast beef and plum-pudding for every one.
       Quart of double stout a head. Pint of wine too, if they like it, and the
       authorities give permission.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'

       She was thrown into such a confusion by his manner, or rather by
       Clennam's growing understanding of his manner (for she looked to him
               after every fresh appeal and cockatoo demonstration on the part of Mr
               Pancks), that she only moved her lips in answer, without forming any
       word.

       'And oh, by-the-bye!' said Pancks, 'you were to live to know what was
       behind us on that little hand of yours. And so you shall, you shall, my
       darling.--Eh, Miss Dorrit?'

       He had suddenly checked himself. Where he got all the additional black
       prongs from, that now flew up all over his head like the myriads of
       points that break out in the large change of a great firework, was a
       wonderful mystery.

       'But I shall be missed;' he came back to that; 'and I don't want 'em to
       miss me. Mr Clennam, you and I made a bargain. I said you should find me
       stick to it. You shall find me stick to it now, sir, if you'll step out
       of the room a moment. Miss Dorrit, I wish you good night. Miss Dorrit, I
       wish you good fortune.'

       He rapidly shook her by both hands, and puffed down stairs. Arthur
       followed him with such a hurried step, that he had very nearly tumbled
       over him on the last landing, and rolled him down into the yard.

       'What is it, for Heaven's sake!' Arthur demanded, when they burst out
       there both together.

       'Stop a moment, sir. Mr Rugg. Let me introduce him.'

       With those words he presented another man without a hat, and also with a
       cigar, and also surrounded with a halo of ale and tobacco smoke, which
       man, though not so excited as himself, was in a state which would have
       been akin to lunacy but for its fading into sober method when compared
       with the rampancy of Mr Pancks.

       'Mr Clennam, Mr Rugg,' said Pancks. 'Stop a moment. Come to the pump.'

       They adjourned to the pump. Mr Pancks, instantly putting his head under
       the spout, requested Mr Rugg to take a good strong turn at the handle.
       Mr Rugg complying to the letter, Mr Pancks came forth snorting and
       blowing to some purpose, and dried himself on his handkerchief.

       'I am the clearer for that,' he gasped to Clennam standing astonished.
       'But upon my soul, to hear her father making speeches in that chair,
       knowing what we know, and to see her up in that room in that dress,
       knowing what we know, is enough to--give me a back, Mr Rugg--a little
       higher, sir,--that'll do!'

       Then and there, on that Marshalsea pavement, in the shades of evening,
       did Mr Pancks, of all mankind, fly over the head and shoulders of Mr
       Rugg of Pentonville, General Agent, Accountant, and Recoverer of Debts.
       Alighting on his feet, he took Clennam by the button-hole, led him
       behind the pump, and pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of
       papers.

       Mr Rugg, also, pantingly produced from his pocket a bundle of papers.

       'Stay!' said Clennam in a whisper.'You have made a discovery.'

       Mr Pancks answered, with an unction which there is no language to
       convey, 'We rather think so.'

       'Does it implicate any one?'

       'How implicate, sir?'

       'In any suppression or wrong dealing of any kind?'

       'Not a bit of it.'

       'Thank God!' said Clennam to himself. 'Now show me.'

       'You are to understand'--snorted Pancks, feverishly unfolding papers,
       and speaking in short high-pressure blasts of sentences, 'Where's the
       Pedigree? Where's Schedule number four, Mr Rugg? Oh! all right! Here we
       are.--You are to understand that we are this very day virtually
       complete. We shan't be legally for a day or two. Call it at the outside
       a week. We've been at it night and day for I don't know how long. Mr
       Rugg, you know how long? Never mind. Don't say. You'll only confuse me.
       You shall tell her, Mr Clennam. Not till we give you leave. Where's that
       rough total, Mr Rugg? Oh! Here we are! There sir! That's what you'll
       have to break to her. That man's your Father of the Marshalsea!'

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Oh, this chapter is a doozy. It's like all the emotional melodrama of high school, packed into a ten-minute conversation. Get ready to get kind of punchy - all Shmoop wants to do is smack Arthur and Little Dorrit around a bit. So, yeah, alone at last. Arthur is all, hey, how come you're kind of MIA recently? Little Dorrit starts to cry. Then she says she's just been busy. And anyway, what's wrong with Arthur? Has he been sick or something? Arthur is stunned that she can tell and fesses up that he was kind of in love with someone but it didn't work out. Ouch. Little Dorrit asks whether it's someone she knows. Flora, perhaps? Arthur is all, ew, no! Then he tells her that he now realizes he's too old for romantic love. Ouch again! Totally oblivious, he keeps going: Little Dorrit should think of him as a friend and tell him all her secrets. He knows she's always going to be tied down to the whole taking-care-of-the-Dorrits routine. Body slam! Little Dorrit is intensely pained by this, when suddenly... Maggie pipes up that Little Dorrit should tell Arthur about the princess and the old woman and the shadow. Little Dorrit blushes, gets embarrassed, but then plays it off like it's just some nonsense fairytale she told Maggie and doesn't remember anymore. Arthur buys this. He really is just totally terrible at reading people. He goes on: does Little Dorrit love anyone? Doesn't she want to share with Arthur? He wants to be her friend and confidant. As she is saying "no, no," the door bursts open and in comes... Pancks. Pancks is all weird and doing his "fortune telling" thing. He keeps exchanging meaningful glances with Arthur. Pancks and Arthur go out in the hallway. Pancks has clearly discovered something super awesome about the Dorrits. He leaves it to Arthur to break the news.


prompt:
Chapter: Resigning herself to inevitable fate by making the best of those people,
          the Miggleses, and submitting her philosophy to the draught upon it, of
          which she had foreseen the likelihood in her interview with Arthur,
          Mrs Gowan handsomely resolved not to oppose her son's marriage. In her
          progress to, and happy arrival at, this resolution, she was possibly
          influenced, not only by her maternal affections but by three politic
          considerations.

          Of these, the first may have been that her son had never signified the
          smallest intention to ask her consent, or any mistrust of his ability
          to dispense with it; the second, that the pension bestowed upon her by a
          grateful country (and a Barnacle) would be freed from any little filial
          inroads, when her Henry should be married to the darling only child of
          a man in very easy circumstances; the third, that Henry's debts must
          clearly be paid down upon the altar-railing by his father-in-law. When,
          to these three-fold points of prudence there is added the fact that
          Mrs Gowan yielded her consent the moment she knew of Mr Meagles having
          yielded his, and that Mr Meagles's objection to the marriage had
          been the sole obstacle in its way all along, it becomes the height of
          probability that the relict of the deceased Commissioner of nothing
          particular, turned these ideas in her sagacious mind.

          Among her connections and acquaintances, however, she maintained her
          individual dignity and the dignity of the blood of the Barnacles, by
          diligently nursing the pretence that it was a most unfortunate business;
          that she was sadly cut up by it; that this was a perfect fascination
          under which Henry laboured; that she had opposed it for a long time,
          but what could a mother do; and the like. She had already called Arthur
          Clennam to bear witness to this fable, as a friend of the Meagles
          family; and she followed up the move by now impounding the family itself
          for the same purpose. In the first interview she accorded to Mr Meagles,
          she slided herself into the position of disconsolately but gracefully
          yielding to irresistible pressure. With the utmost politeness and
          good-breeding, she feigned that it was she--not he--who had made the
          difficulty, and who at length gave way; and that the sacrifice was
          hers--not his. The same feint, with the same polite dexterity, she
          foisted on Mrs Meagles, as a conjuror might have forced a card on that
          innocent lady; and, when her future daughter-in-law was presented to her
          by her son, she said on embracing her, 'My dear, what have you done to
          Henry that has bewitched him so!' at the same time allowing a few tears
          to carry before them, in little pills, the cosmetic powder on her nose;
          as a delicate but touching signal that she suffered much inwardly for
          the show of composure with which she bore her misfortune.

          Among the friends of Mrs Gowan (who piqued herself at once on being
                  Society, and on maintaining intimate and easy relations with that
                  Power), Mrs Merdle occupied a front row. True, the Hampton Court
          Bohemians, without exception, turned up their noses at Merdle as an
          upstart; but they turned them down again, by falling flat on their faces
          to worship his wealth. In which compensating adjustment of their noses,
          they were pretty much like Treasury, Bar, and Bishop, and all the rest
          of them.

          To Mrs Merdle, Mrs Gowan repaired on a visit of self-condolence, after
          having given the gracious consent aforesaid. She drove into town for the
          purpose in a one-horse carriage irreverently called at that period of
          English history, a pill-box. It belonged to a job-master in a small way,
          who drove it himself, and who jobbed it by the day, or hour, to most of
          the old ladies in Hampton Court Palace; but it was a point of ceremony,
          in that encampment, that the whole equipage should be tacitly regarded
          as the private property of the jobber for the time being, and that the
          job-master should betray personal knowledge of nobody but the jobber
          in possession. So the Circumlocution Barnacles, who were the largest
          job-masters in the universe, always pretended to know of no other job
          but the job immediately in hand.

          Mrs Merdle was at home, and was in her nest of crimson and gold, with
          the parrot on a neighbouring stem watching her with his head on one
          side, as if he took her for another splendid parrot of a larger species.
          To whom entered Mrs Gowan, with her favourite green fan, which softened
          the light on the spots of bloom.

          'My dear soul,' said Mrs Gowan, tapping the back of her friend's hand
          with this fan after a little indifferent conversation, 'you are my only
          comfort. That affair of Henry's that I told you of, is to take place.
          Now, how does it strike you? I am dying to know, because you represent
          and express Society so well.'

          Mrs Merdle reviewed the bosom which Society was accustomed to review;
          and having ascertained that show-window of Mr Merdle's and the London
          jewellers' to be in good order, replied:

          'As to marriage on the part of a man, my dear, Society requires that
          he should retrieve his fortunes by marriage. Society requires that
          he should gain by marriage. Society requires that he should found a
          handsome establishment by marriage. Society does not see, otherwise,
          what he has to do with marriage. Bird, be quiet!'

          For the parrot on his cage above them, presiding over the conference as
          if he were a judge (and indeed he looked rather like one), had wound up
          the exposition with a shriek.

          'Cases there are,' said Mrs Merdle, delicately crooking the little
          finger of her favourite hand, and making her remarks neater by that neat
          action; 'cases there are where a man is not young or elegant, and is
          rich, and has a handsome establishment already. Those are of a different
          kind. In such cases--'

          Mrs Merdle shrugged her snowy shoulders and put her hand upon the
          jewel-stand, checking a little cough, as though to add, 'why, a man
          looks out for this sort of thing, my dear.' Then the parrot shrieked
          again, and she put up her glass to look at him, and said, 'Bird! Do be
          quiet!'

          'But, young men,' resumed Mrs Merdle, 'and by young men you know
          what I mean, my love--I mean people's sons who have the world before
          them--they must place themselves in a better position towards Society by
          marriage, or Society really will not have any patience with their making
          fools of themselves. Dreadfully worldly all this sounds,' said Mrs
          Merdle, leaning back in her nest and putting up her glass again, 'does
          it not?'

          'But it is true,' said Mrs Gowan, with a highly moral air.

          'My dear, it is not to be disputed for a moment,' returned Mrs Merdle;
          'because Society has made up its mind on the subject, and there is
          nothing more to be said. If we were in a more primitive state, if we
          lived under roofs of leaves, and kept cows and sheep and creatures
          instead of banker's accounts (which would be delicious; my dear, I am
                  pastoral to a degree, by nature), well and good. But we don't live
          under leaves, and keep cows and sheep and creatures. I perfectly exhaust
          myself sometimes, in pointing out the distinction to Edmund Sparkler.'

          Mrs Gowan, looking over her green fan when this young gentleman's name
          was mentioned, replied as follows:

          'My love, you know the wretched state of the country--those unfortunate
          concessions of John Barnacle's!--and you therefore know the reasons for
          my being as poor as Thingummy.'

          'A church mouse?' Mrs Merdle suggested with a smile.

          'I was thinking of the other proverbial church person--Job,' said Mrs
          Gowan. 'Either will do. It would be idle to disguise, consequently, that
          there is a wide difference between the position of your son and mine. I
          may add, too, that Henry has talent--'

          'Which Edmund certainly has not,' said Mrs Merdle, with the greatest
          suavity.

          '--and that his talent, combined with disappointment,' Mrs Gowan went
          on, 'has led him into a pursuit which--ah dear me! You know, my dear.
          Such being Henry's different position, the question is what is the most
          inferior class of marriage to which I can reconcile myself.'

          Mrs Merdle was so much engaged with the contemplation of her arms
          (beautiful-formed arms, and the very thing for bracelets), that she
          omitted to reply for a while. Roused at length by the silence, she
          folded the arms, and with admirable presence of mind looked her friend
          full in the face, and said interrogatively, 'Ye-es? And then?'

          'And then, my dear,' said Mrs Gowan not quite so sweetly as before, 'I
          should be glad to hear what you have to say to it.'

          Here the parrot, who had been standing on one leg since he screamed
          last, burst into a fit of laughter, bobbed himself derisively up and
          down on both legs, and finished by standing on one leg again, and
          pausing for a reply, with his head as much awry as he could possibly
          twist it.

          'Sounds mercenary to ask what the gentleman is to get with the lady,'
          said Mrs Merdle; 'but Society is perhaps a little mercenary, you know,
          my dear.'

          'From what I can make out,' said Mrs Gowan, 'I believe I may say that
          Henry will be relieved from debt--'

          'Much in debt?' asked Mrs Merdle through her eyeglass.

          'Why tolerably, I should think,' said Mrs Gowan.

          'Meaning the usual thing; I understand; just so,' Mrs Merdle observed in
          a comfortable sort of way.

          'And that the father will make them an allowance of three hundred
          a-year, or perhaps altogether something more, which, in Italy-'

          'Oh! Going to Italy?' said Mrs Merdle.

          'For Henry to study. You need be at no loss to guess why, my dear.
          That dreadful Art--'

          True. Mrs Merdle hastened to spare the feelings of her afflicted friend.
          She understood. Say no more!

          'And that,' said Mrs Gowan, shaking her despondent head, 'that's all.
          That,' repeated Mrs Gowan, furling her green fan for the moment, and
          tapping her chin with it (it was on the way to being a double chin;
                  might be called a chin and a half at present), 'that's all! On the death
          of the old people, I suppose there will be more to come; but how it may
          be restricted or locked up, I don't know. And as to that, they may live
          for ever. My dear, they are just the kind of people to do it.'

          Now, Mrs Merdle, who really knew her friend Society pretty well, and who
          knew what Society's mothers were, and what Society's daughters were, and
          what Society's matrimonial market was, and how prices ruled in it, and
          what scheming and counter-scheming took place for the high buyers, and
          what bargaining and huckstering went on, thought in the depths of
          her capacious bosom that this was a sufficiently good catch. Knowing,
          however, what was expected of her, and perceiving the exact nature of
          the fiction to be nursed, she took it delicately in her arms, and put
          her required contribution of gloss upon it.

          'And that is all, my dear?' said she, heaving a friendly sigh. 'Well,
          well! The fault is not yours. You have nothing to reproach yourself
          with. You must exercise the strength of mind for which you are renowned,
          and make the best of it.'

          'The girl's family have made,' said Mrs Gowan, 'of course, the most
          strenuous endeavours to--as the lawyers say--to have and to hold Henry.'

          'Of course they have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle.

          'I have persisted in every possible objection, and have worried
          myself morning, noon, and night, for means to detach Henry from the
          connection.'

          'No doubt you have, my dear,' said Mrs Merdle.

          'And all of no use. All has broken down beneath me. Now tell me, my
          love. Am I justified in at last yielding my most reluctant consent to
          Henry's marrying among people not in Society; or, have I acted with
          inexcusable weakness?'

          In answer to this direct appeal, Mrs Merdle assured Mrs Gowan (speaking
                  as a Priestess of Society) that she was highly to be commended, that
          she was much to be sympathised with, that she had taken the highest of
          parts, and had come out of the furnace refined. And Mrs Gowan, who of
          course saw through her own threadbare blind perfectly, and who knew that
          Mrs Merdle saw through it perfectly, and who knew that Society would see
          through it perfectly, came out of this form, notwithstanding, as she had
          gone into it, with immense complacency and gravity.

          The conference was held at four or five o'clock in the afternoon, when
          all the region of Harley Street, Cavendish Square, was resonant of
          carriage-wheels and double-knocks. It had reached this point when Mr
          Merdle came home from his daily occupation of causing the British
          name to be more and more respected in all parts of the civilised globe
          capable of the appreciation of world-wide commercial enterprise and
          gigantic combinations of skill and capital. For, though nobody knew with
          the least precision what Mr Merdle's business was, except that it was
          to coin money, these were the terms in which everybody defined it on all
          ceremonious occasions, and which it was the last new polite reading of
          the parable of the camel and the needle's eye to accept without inquiry.

          For a gentleman who had this splendid work cut out for him, Mr Merdle
          looked a little common, and rather as if, in the course of his vast
          transactions, he had accidentally made an interchange of heads with
          some inferior spirit. He presented himself before the two ladies in the
          course of a dismal stroll through his mansion, which had no apparent
          object but escape from the presence of the chief butler.

          'I beg your pardon,' he said, stopping short in confusion; 'I didn't
          know there was anybody here but the parrot.'

          However, as Mrs Merdle said, 'You can come in!' and as Mrs Gowan said
          she was just going, and had already risen to take her leave, he came in,
          and stood looking out at a distant window, with his hands crossed under
          his uneasy coat-cuffs, clasping his wrists as if he were taking himself
          into custody. In this attitude he fell directly into a reverie from
          which he was only aroused by his wife's calling to him from her ottoman,
          when they had been for some quarter of an hour alone.

          'Eh? Yes?' said Mr Merdle, turning towards her. 'What is it?'

          'What is it?' repeated Mrs Merdle. 'It is, I suppose, that you have not
          heard a word of my complaint.'

          'Your complaint, Mrs Merdle?' said Mr Merdle. 'I didn't know that you
          were suffering from a complaint. What complaint?'

          'A complaint of you,' said Mrs Merdle.

          'Oh! A complaint of me,' said Mr Merdle. 'What is the--what have I--what
          may you have to complain of in me, Mrs Merdle?'

          In his withdrawing, abstracted, pondering way, it took him some time to
          shape this question. As a kind of faint attempt to convince himself
          that he was the master of the house, he concluded by presenting his
          forefinger to the parrot, who expressed his opinion on that subject by
          instantly driving his bill into it.

          'You were saying, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle, with his wounded finger
          in his mouth, 'that you had a complaint against me?'

          'A complaint which I could scarcely show the justice of more
          emphatically, than by having to repeat it,' said Mrs Merdle. 'I might as
          well have stated it to the wall. I had far better have stated it to the
          bird. He would at least have screamed.'

          'You don't want me to scream, Mrs Merdle, I suppose,' said Mr Merdle,
          taking a chair.

          'Indeed I don't know,' retorted Mrs Merdle, 'but that you had better do
          that, than be so moody and distraught. One would at least know that you
          were sensible of what was going on around you.'

          'A man might scream, and yet not be that, Mrs Merdle,' said Mr Merdle,
          heavily.

          'And might be dogged, as you are at present, without screaming,'
          returned Mrs Merdle. 'That's very true. If you wish to know the
          complaint I make against you, it is, in so many plain words, that you
          really ought not to go into Society unless you can accommodate yourself
          to Society.'

          Mr Merdle, so twisting his hands into what hair he had upon his head
          that he seemed to lift himself up by it as he started out of his chair,
          cried:

          'Why, in the name of all the infernal powers, Mrs Merdle, who
          does more for Society than I do? Do you see these premises, Mrs Merdle?
          Do you see this furniture, Mrs Merdle? Do you look in the glass and see
          yourself, Mrs Merdle? Do you know the cost of all this, and who it's
          all provided for? And yet will you tell me that I oughtn't to go into
          Society? I, who shower money upon it in this way? I, who might always be
          said--to--to--to harness myself to a watering-cart full of money, and go
          about saturating Society every day of my life.'

          'Pray, don't be violent, Mr Merdle,' said Mrs Merdle.

          'Violent?' said Mr Merdle. 'You are enough to make me desperate. You
          don't know half of what I do to accommodate Society. You don't know
          anything of the sacrifices I make for it.'

          'I know,' returned Mrs Merdle, 'that you receive the best in the land. I
          know that you move in the whole Society of the country. And I believe
          I know (indeed, not to make any ridiculous pretence about it, I know I
                  know) who sustains you in it, Mr Merdle.'

          'Mrs Merdle,' retorted that gentleman, wiping his dull red and yellow
          face, 'I know that as well as you do. If you were not an ornament to
          Society, and if I was not a benefactor to Society, you and I would never
          have come together. When I say a benefactor to it, I mean a person who
          provides it with all sorts of expensive things to eat and drink and look
          at. But, to tell me that I am not fit for it after all I have done
          for it--after all I have done for it,' repeated Mr Merdle, with a wild
          emphasis that made his wife lift up her eyelids, 'after all--all!--to
          tell me I have no right to mix with it after all, is a pretty reward.'

          'I say,' answered Mrs Merdle composedly, 'that you ought to make
          yourself fit for it by being more degage, and less preoccupied. There is
          a positive vulgarity in carrying your business affairs about with you as
          you do.'

          'How do I carry them about, Mrs Merdle?' asked Mr Merdle.

          'How do you carry them about?' said Mrs Merdle. 'Look at yourself in the
          glass.'

          Mr Merdle involuntarily turned his eyes in the direction of the nearest
          mirror, and asked, with a slow determination of his turbid blood to his
          temples, whether a man was to be called to account for his digestion?

          'You have a physician,' said Mrs Merdle.

          'He does me no good,' said Mr Merdle.

          Mrs Merdle changed her ground.

          'Besides,' said she, 'your digestion is nonsense. I don't speak of your
          digestion. I speak of your manner.'

          'Mrs Merdle,' returned her husband, 'I look to you for that. You supply
          manner, and I supply money.'

          'I don't expect you,' said Mrs Merdle, reposing easily among her
          cushions, 'to captivate people. I don't want you to take any trouble
          upon yourself, or to try to be fascinating. I simply request you to care
          about nothing--or seem to care about nothing--as everybody else does.'

          'Do I ever say I care about anything?' asked Mr Merdle.

          'Say? No! Nobody would attend to you if you did. But you show it.'

          'Show what? What do I show?' demanded Mr Merdle hurriedly.

          'I have already told you. You show that you carry your business cares
          an projects about, instead of leaving them in the City, or wherever else
          they belong to,' said Mrs Merdle. 'Or seeming to. Seeming would be quite
          enough: I ask no more. Whereas you couldn't be more occupied with your
          day's calculations and combinations than you habitually show yourself to
          be, if you were a carpenter.'

          'A carpenter!' repeated Mr Merdle, checking something like a groan.
          'I shouldn't so much mind being a carpenter, Mrs Merdle.'

          'And my complaint is,' pursued the lady, disregarding the low remark,
          'that it is not the tone of Society, and that you ought to correct
          it, Mr Merdle. If you have any doubt of my judgment, ask even Edmund
          Sparkler.' The door of the room had opened, and Mrs Merdle now surveyed
          the head of her son through her glass. 'Edmund; we want you here.'

          Mr Sparkler, who had merely put in his head and looked round the room
          without entering (as if he were searching the house for that young lady
                  with no nonsense about her), upon this followed up his head with his
          body, and stood before them. To whom, in a few easy words adapted to his
          capacity, Mrs Merdle stated the question at issue.

          The young gentleman, after anxiously feeling his shirt-collar as if it
          were his pulse and he were hypochondriacal, observed, 'That he had heard
          it noticed by fellers.'

          'Edmund Sparkler has heard it noticed,' said Mrs Merdle, with languid
          triumph. 'Why, no doubt everybody has heard it noticed!' Which in truth
          was no unreasonable inference; seeing that Mr Sparkler would probably be
          the last person, in any assemblage of the human species, to receive an
          impression from anything that passed in his presence.

          'And Edmund Sparkler will tell you, I dare say,' said Mrs Merdle, waving
          her favourite hand towards her husband, 'how he has heard it noticed.'

          'I couldn't,' said Mr Sparkler, after feeling his pulse as before,
          'couldn't undertake to say what led to it--'cause memory desperate
          loose. But being in company with the brother of a doosed fine gal--well
          educated too--with no biggodd nonsense about her--at the period alluded
          to--'

          'There! Never mind the sister,' remarked Mrs Merdle, a little
          impatiently. 'What did the brother say?'

          'Didn't say a word, ma'am,' answered Mr Sparkler. 'As silent a feller as
          myself. Equally hard up for a remark.'

          'Somebody said something,' returned Mrs Merdle. 'Never mind who it was.'

          ('Assure you I don't in the least,' said Mr Sparkler.)

          'But tell us what it was.'

          Mr Sparkler referred to his pulse again, and put himself through some
          severe mental discipline before he replied:

          'Fellers referring to my Governor--expression not my own--occasionally
          compliment my Governor in a very handsome way on being immensely rich
          and knowing--perfect phenomenon of Buyer and Banker and that--but say
          the Shop sits heavily on him. Say he carried the Shop about, on his back
          rather--like Jew clothesmen with too much business.'

          'Which,' said Mrs Merdle, rising, with her floating drapery about her,
          'is exactly my complaint. Edmund, give me your arm up-stairs.'

          Mr Merdle, left alone to meditate on a better conformation of himself to
          Society, looked out of nine windows in succession, and appeared to
          see nine wastes of space. When he had thus entertained himself he went
          down-stairs, and looked intently at all the carpets on the ground-floor;
          and then came up-stairs again, and looked intently at all the carpets
          on the first-floor; as if they were gloomy depths, in unison with his
          oppressed soul. Through all the rooms he wandered, as he always did,
          like the last person on earth who had any business to approach them. Let
          Mrs Merdle announce, with all her might, that she was at Home ever
          so many nights in a season, she could not announce more widely and
          unmistakably than Mr Merdle did that he was never at home.

          At last he met the chief butler, the sight of which splendid retainer
          always finished him. Extinguished by this great creature, he sneaked
          to his dressing-room, and there remained shut up until he rode out to
          dinner, with Mrs Merdle, in her own handsome chariot. At dinner, he was
          envied and flattered as a being of might, was Treasuried, Barred, and
          Bishoped, as much as he would; and an hour after midnight came home
          alone, and being instantly put out again in his own hall, like a
          rushlight, by the chief butler, went sighing to bed.

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: Whoa, whiplash. Guess we'll find out about Pancks and the Dorrit revelation later. Mrs. Gowan goes to visit her dear friend Mrs. Merdle. And by that, we mean that Mrs. Merdle is the most popular girl at school... ahem, in society... and Mrs. Gowan wants to be cool by association. Also, Mrs. Gowan wants to complete her neat trick of making it seem like she has always opposed her son Henry Gowan's marriage to Pet Meagles and that he is only marrying Pet because the Meagleses have somehow entrapped him. Both Mrs. Gowan and Mrs. Merdle know that in reality, Mrs. Gowan wants Gowan to marry Pet because of her money, and that all of this is just a way to save face. Still, Mrs. Merdle plays along, says that Mrs. Gowan couldn't really do anything about her son, and that society will understand, since the Meagleses are rich. Good work, ladies. You have successfully completed your public relations training. Mrs. Gowan is psyched that everything has gone off as planned and leaves. Merdle comes home from work and his wife starts in on him. Basically the gist of Mrs. Merdle's complaint is this: Merdle doesn't leave his business at the office. Instead of seeming cool and disengaged and carefree, he is constantly looking worried and like he is thinking about something. This is way uncool, and society is not into it. Merdle tries to defend himself by saying that with the amount of money he spends on society, society should just take his mood and stuff it. But this doesn't fly with Mrs. Merdle, who illustrates Merdle's very high level of uncoolness by demonstrating that even Edmund Sparkler, her blithering idiot of a son , has heard people say that "the Shop sits heavily on back rather - like Jew clothesman with too much business" . OK, deep breath and let's just set the horrendous casual racism aside for a second. The point is that if even Edmund Sparkler has heard this, it must be all anyone talks about.