Chapter: Arthur Clennam stood in the street, waiting to ask some passer-by what
place that was. He suffered a few people to pass him in whose face there
was no encouragement to make the inquiry, and still stood pausing in the
street, when an old man came up and turned into the courtyard.

He stooped a good deal, and plodded along in a slow pre-occupied manner,
   which made the bustling London thoroughfares no very safe resort for
   him. He was dirtily and meanly dressed, in a threadbare coat, once blue,
   reaching to his ankles and buttoned to his chin, where it vanished in
   the pale ghost of a velvet collar. A piece of red cloth with which that
   phantom had been stiffened in its lifetime was now laid bare, and poked
   itself up, at the back of the old man's neck, into a confusion of grey
   hair and rusty stock and buckle which altogether nearly poked his
   hat off. A greasy hat it was, and a napless; impending over his eyes,
   cracked and crumpled at the brim, and with a wisp of pocket-handkerchief
   dangling out below it. His trousers were so long and loose, and his
   shoes so clumsy and large, that he shuffled like an elephant; though how
   much of this was gait, and how much trailing cloth and leather, no one
   could have told. Under one arm he carried a limp and worn-out case,
   containing some wind instrument; in the same hand he had a pennyworth
   of snuff in a little packet of whitey-brown paper, from which he slowly
   comforted his poor blue old nose with a lengthened-out pinch, as Arthur
   Clennam looked at him.

   To this old man crossing the court-yard, he preferred his inquiry,
   touching him on the shoulder. The old man stopped and looked round, with
   the expression in his weak grey eyes of one whose thoughts had been far
   off, and who was a little dull of hearing also.

   'Pray, sir,' said Arthur, repeating his question, 'what is this place?'

   'Ay! This place?' returned the old man, staying his pinch of snuff on
   its road, and pointing at the place without looking at it. 'This is the
   Marshalsea, sir.'

   'The debtors' prison?'

   'Sir,' said the old man, with the air of deeming it not quite necessary
   to insist upon that designation, 'the debtors' prison.'

   He turned himself about, and went on.

   'I beg your pardon,' said Arthur, stopping him once more, 'but will you
   allow me to ask you another question? Can any one go in here?'

   'Any one can _go in_,' replied the old man; plainly adding by the
   significance of his emphasis, 'but it is not every one who can go out.'

   'Pardon me once more. Are you familiar with the place?'

   'Sir,' returned the old man, squeezing his little packet of snuff in his
   hand, and turning upon his interrogator as if such questions hurt him.
   'I am.'

   'I beg you to excuse me. I am not impertinently curious, but have a good
   object. Do you know the name of Dorrit here?'

   'My name, sir,' replied the old man most unexpectedly, 'is Dorrit.'

   Arthur pulled off his hat to him. 'Grant me the favour of half-a-dozen
   words. I was wholly unprepared for your announcement, and hope that
   assurance is my sufficient apology for having taken the liberty of
   addressing you. I have recently come home to England after a long
   absence. I have seen at my mother's--Mrs Clennam in the city--a young
   woman working at her needle, whom I have only heard addressed or spoken
   of as Little Dorrit. I have felt sincerely interested in her, and have
   had a great desire to know something more about her. I saw her, not a
   minute before you came up, pass in at that door.'

   The old man looked at him attentively. 'Are you a sailor, sir?' he
   asked. He seemed a little disappointed by the shake of the head that
   replied to him. 'Not a sailor? I judged from your sunburnt face that you
   might be. Are you in earnest, sir?'

   'I do assure you that I am, and do entreat you to believe that I am, in
   plain earnest.'

   'I know very little of the world, sir,' returned the other, who had a
   weak and quavering voice. 'I am merely passing on, like the shadow over
   the sun-dial. It would be worth no man's while to mislead me; it would
   really be too easy--too poor a success, to yield any satisfaction. The
   young woman whom you saw go in here is my brother's child. My brother
   is William Dorrit; I am Frederick. You say you have seen her at your
   mother's (I know your mother befriends her), you have felt an interest
   in her, and you wish to know what she does here. Come and see.'

   He went on again, and Arthur accompanied him.

   'My brother,' said the old man, pausing on the step and slowly facing
   round again, 'has been here many years; and much that happens even among
   ourselves, out of doors, is kept from him for reasons that I needn't
   enter upon now. Be so good as to say nothing of my niece's working at
   her needle. Be so good as to say nothing that goes beyond what is said
   among us. If you keep within our bounds, you cannot well be wrong. Now!
   Come and see.'

   Arthur followed him down a narrow entry, at the end of which a key was
   turned, and a strong door was opened from within. It admitted them into
   a lodge or lobby, across which they passed, and so through another door
   and a grating into the prison. The old man always plodding on before,
   turned round, in his slow, stiff, stooping manner, when they came to the
   turnkey on duty, as if to present his companion. The turnkey nodded; and
   the companion passed in without being asked whom he wanted.

   The night was dark; and the prison lamps in the yard, and the candles in
   the prison windows faintly shining behind many sorts of wry old curtain
   and blind, had not the air of making it lighter. A few people loitered
   about, but the greater part of the population was within doors. The old
   man, taking the right-hand side of the yard, turned in at the third or
   fourth doorway, and began to ascend the stairs. 'They are rather dark,
   sir, but you will not find anything in the way.'

   He paused for a moment before opening a door on the second story. He had
   no sooner turned the handle than the visitor saw Little Dorrit, and saw
   the reason of her setting so much store by dining alone.

   She had brought the meat home that she should have eaten herself, and
   was already warming it on a gridiron over the fire for her father, clad
   in an old grey gown and a black cap, awaiting his supper at the table.
   A clean cloth was spread before him, with knife, fork, and spoon,
   salt-cellar, pepper-box, glass, and pewter ale-pot. Such zests as his
   particular little phial of cayenne pepper and his pennyworth of pickles
   in a saucer, were not wanting.

   She started, coloured deeply, and turned white. The visitor, more with
   his eyes than by the slight impulsive motion of his hand, entreated her
   to be reassured and to trust him.

   'I found this gentleman,' said the uncle--'Mr Clennam, William, son of
   Amy's friend--at the outer gate, wishful, as he was going by, of paying
   his respects, but hesitating whether to come in or not. This is my
   brother William, sir.'

   'I hope,' said Arthur, very doubtful what to say, 'that my respect for
   your daughter may explain and justify my desire to be presented to you,
   sir.'

   'Mr Clennam,' returned the other, rising, taking his cap off in the
   flat of his hand, and so holding it, ready to put on again, 'you do me
   honour. You are welcome, sir;' with a low bow. 'Frederick, a chair. Pray
   sit down, Mr Clennam.'

   He put his black cap on again as he had taken it off, and resumed his
   own seat. There was a wonderful air of benignity and patronage in his
   manner. These were the ceremonies with which he received the collegians.

   'You are welcome to the Marshalsea, sir. I have welcomed many gentlemen
   to these walls. Perhaps you are aware--my daughter Amy may have
   mentioned that I am the Father of this place.'

   'I--so I have understood,' said Arthur, dashing at the assertion.

   'You know, I dare say, that my daughter Amy was born here. A good girl,
   sir, a dear girl, and long a comfort and support to me. Amy, my dear,
   put this dish on; Mr Clennam will excuse the primitive customs to which
   we are reduced here. Is it a compliment to ask you if you would do me
   the honour, sir, to--'

   'Thank you,' returned Arthur. 'Not a morsel.'

   He felt himself quite lost in wonder at the manner of the man, and that
   the probability of his daughter's having had a reserve as to her family
   history, should be so far out of his mind.

   She filled his glass, put all the little matters on the table ready to
   his hand, and then sat beside him while he ate his supper. Evidently in
   observance of their nightly custom, she put some bread before herself,
   and touched his glass with her lips; but Arthur saw she was troubled
   and took nothing. Her look at her father, half admiring him and proud
   of him, half ashamed for him, all devoted and loving, went to his inmost
   heart.

   The Father of the Marshalsea condescended towards his brother as an
   amiable, well-meaning man; a private character, who had not arrived at
   distinction. 'Frederick,' said he, 'you and Fanny sup at your lodgings
   to-night, I know. What have you done with Fanny, Frederick?'

   'She is walking with Tip.'

   'Tip--as you may know--is my son, Mr Clennam. He has been a little
   wild, and difficult to settle, but his introduction to the world was
   rather'--he shrugged his shoulders with a faint sigh, and looked round
   the room--'a little adverse. Your first visit here, sir?'

   'My first.'

   'You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my
   knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody--of any pretensions--any
   pretensions--comes here without being presented to me.'

   'As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,'
   said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.

   'Yes!' the Father of the Marshalsea assented. 'We have even exceeded
   that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee--quite
   a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the
   name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last
   Christmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded for six
   months.'

   'I don't remember his name, father.'

   'Frederick, do _you_ remember his name?'

   Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that
   Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with
   any hope of information.

   'I mean,' said his brother, 'the gentleman who did that handsome action
   with so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite escaped me. Mr
   Clennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you
   may like, perhaps, to know what it was.'

   'Very much,' said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head
   beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over
   it.

   'It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a
   duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it
   on every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness.
   A--well--a--it's of no use to disguise the fact--you must know, Mr
   Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire
   to offer some little--Testimonial--to the Father of the place.'

   To see her hand upon his arm in mute entreaty half-repressed, and her
   timid little shrinking figure turning away, was to see a sad, sad sight.

   'Sometimes,' he went on in a low, soft voice, agitated, and clearing
   his throat every now and then; 'sometimes--hem--it takes one shape and
   sometimes another; but it is generally--ha--Money. And it is, I cannot
   but confess it, it is too often--hem--acceptable. This gentleman that I
   refer to, was presented to me, Mr Clennam, in a manner highly gratifying
   to my feelings, and conversed not only with great politeness, but with
   great--ahem--information.' All this time, though he had finished his
   supper, he was nervously going about his plate with his knife and
   fork, as if some of it were still before him. 'It appeared from his
   conversation that he had a garden, though he was delicate of mentioning
   it at first, as gardens are--hem--are not accessible to me. But it came
   out, through my admiring a very fine cluster of geranium--beautiful
   cluster of geranium to be sure--which he had brought from his
   conservatory. On my taking notice of its rich colour, he showed me a
   piece of paper round it, on which was written, "For the Father of the
   Marshalsea," and presented it to me. But this was--hem--not all. He made
   a particular request, on taking leave, that I would remove the paper in
   half an hour. I--ha--I did so; and I found that it contained--ahem--two
   guineas. I assure you, Mr Clennam, I have received--hem--Testimonials
   in many ways, and of many degrees of value, and they have always
   been--ha--unfortunately acceptable; but I never was more pleased than
   with this--ahem--this particular Testimonial.'

   Arthur was in the act of saying the little he could say on such a theme,
   when a bell began to ring, and footsteps approached the door. A pretty
   girl of a far better figure and much more developed than Little Dorrit,
   though looking much younger in the face when the two were observed
   together, stopped in the doorway on seeing a stranger; and a young man
   who was with her, stopped too.

   'Mr Clennam, Fanny. My eldest daughter and my son, Mr Clennam. The bell
   is a signal for visitors to retire, and so they have come to say good
   night; but there is plenty of time, plenty of time. Girls, Mr Clennam
   will excuse any household business you may have together. He knows, I
   dare say, that I have but one room here.'

   'I only want my clean dress from Amy, father,' said the second girl.

   'And I my clothes,' said Tip.

   Amy opened a drawer in an old piece of furniture that was a chest of
   drawers above and a bedstead below, and produced two little bundles,
   which she handed to her brother and sister. 'Mended and made up?'
   Clennam heard the sister ask in a whisper. To which Amy answered 'Yes.'
   He had risen now, and took the opportunity of glancing round the room.
   The bare walls had been coloured green, evidently by an unskilled hand,
   and were poorly decorated with a few prints. The window was curtained,
   and the floor carpeted; and there were shelves and pegs, and other such
   conveniences, that had accumulated in the course of years. It was a
   close, confined room, poorly furnished; and the chimney smoked to boot,
   or the tin screen at the top of the fireplace was superfluous; but
   constant pains and care had made it neat, and even, after its kind,
   comfortable.

   All the while the bell was ringing, and the uncle was anxious to go.
   'Come, Fanny, come, Fanny,' he said, with his ragged clarionet case
   under his arm; 'the lock, child, the lock!'

   Fanny bade her father good night, and whisked off airily. Tip had
   already clattered down-stairs. 'Now, Mr Clennam,' said the uncle,
   looking back as he shuffled out after them, 'the lock, sir, the lock.'

   Mr Clennam had two things to do before he followed; one, to offer his
   testimonial to the Father of the Marshalsea, without giving pain to his
   child; the other to say something to that child, though it were but a
   word, in explanation of his having come there.

   'Allow me,' said the Father, 'to see you down-stairs.'

   She had slipped out after the rest, and they were alone. 'Not on any
   account,' said the visitor, hurriedly. 'Pray allow me to--' chink,
   chink, chink.

   'Mr Clennam,' said the Father, 'I am deeply, deeply--' But his visitor
   had shut up his hand to stop the clinking, and had gone down-stairs with
   great speed.

   He saw no Little Dorrit on his way down, or in the yard. The last two or
   three stragglers were hurrying to the lodge, and he was following,
   when he caught sight of her in the doorway of the first house from the
   entrance. He turned back hastily.

   'Pray forgive me,' he said, 'for speaking to you here; pray forgive me
   for coming here at all! I followed you to-night. I did so, that I might
   endeavour to render you and your family some service. You know the
   terms on which I and my mother are, and may not be surprised that I
   have preserved our distant relations at her house, lest I should
   unintentionally make her jealous, or resentful, or do you any injury in
   her estimation. What I have seen here, in this short time, has greatly
   increased my heartfelt wish to be a friend to you. It would recompense
   me for much disappointment if I could hope to gain your confidence.'

   She was scared at first, but seemed to take courage while he spoke to
   her.

   'You are very good, sir. You speak very earnestly to me. But I--but I
   wish you had not watched me.'

   He understood the emotion with which she said it, to arise in her
   father's behalf; and he respected it, and was silent.

   'Mrs Clennam has been of great service to me; I don't know what we
   should have done without the employment she has given me; I am afraid
   it may not be a good return to become secret with her; I can say no more
   to-night, sir. I am sure you mean to be kind to us. Thank you, thank
   you.'

   'Let me ask you one question before I leave. Have you known my mother
   long?'

   'I think two years, sir,--The bell has stopped.'

   'How did you know her first? Did she send here for you?'

   'No. She does not even know that I live here. We have a friend, father
   and I--a poor labouring man, but the best of friends--and I wrote out
   that I wished to do needlework, and gave his address. And he got what
   I wrote out displayed at a few places where it cost nothing, and Mrs
   Clennam found me that way, and sent for me. The gate will be locked,
   sir!'

   She was so tremulous and agitated, and he was so moved by compassion for
   her, and by deep interest in her story as it dawned upon him, that he
   could scarcely tear himself away. But the stoppage of the bell, and the
   quiet in the prison, were a warning to depart; and with a few hurried
   words of kindness he left her gliding back to her father.

   But he remained too late. The inner gate was locked, and the lodge
   closed. After a little fruitless knocking with his hand, he was standing
   there with the disagreeable conviction upon him that he had got to get
   through the night, when a voice accosted him from behind.

   'Caught, eh?' said the voice. 'You won't go home till morning. Oh! It's
   you, is it, Mr Clennam?'

   The voice was Tip's; and they stood looking at one another in the
   prison-yard, as it began to rain.

   'You've done it,' observed Tip; 'you must be sharper than that next
   time.'

   'But you are locked in too,' said Arthur.

   'I believe I am!' said Tip, sarcastically. 'About! But not in your way.
   I belong to the shop, only my sister has a theory that our governor must
   never know it. I don't see why, myself.'

   'Can I get any shelter?' asked Arthur. 'What had I better do?'

   'We had better get hold of Amy first of all,' said Tip, referring any
   difficulty to her as a matter of course.

   'I would rather walk about all night--it's not much to do--than give
   that trouble.'

   'You needn't do that, if you don't mind paying for a bed. If you don't
   mind paying, they'll make you up one on the Snuggery table, under the
   circumstances. If you'll come along, I'll introduce you there.'

   As they passed down the yard, Arthur looked up at the window of the room
   he had lately left, where the light was still burning. 'Yes, sir,' said
   Tip, following his glance. 'That's the governor's. She'll sit with him
   for another hour reading yesterday's paper to him, or something of that
   sort; and then she'll come out like a little ghost, and vanish away
   without a sound.'

   'I don't understand you.'

   'The governor sleeps up in the room, and she has a lodging at the
   turnkey's. First house there,' said Tip, pointing out the doorway into
   which she had retired. 'First house, sky parlour. She pays twice as much
   for it as she would for one twice as good outside. But she stands by the
   governor, poor dear girl, day and night.'

   This brought them to the tavern-establishment at the upper end of the
   prison, where the collegians had just vacated their social evening club.
   The apartment on the ground-floor in which it was held, was the Snuggery
   in question; the presidential tribune of the chairman, the pewter-pots,
   glasses, pipes, tobacco-ashes, and general flavour of members, were
   still as that convivial institution had left them on its adjournment.
   The Snuggery had two of the qualities popularly held to be essential to
   grog for ladies, in respect that it was hot and strong; but in the third
   point of analogy, requiring plenty of it, the Snuggery was defective;
   being but a cooped-up apartment.

   The unaccustomed visitor from outside, naturally assumed everybody here
   to be prisoners--landlord, waiter, barmaid, potboy, and all. Whether
   they were or not, did not appear; but they all had a weedy look. The
   keeper of a chandler's shop in a front parlour, who took in gentlemen
   boarders, lent his assistance in making the bed. He had been a tailor in
   his time, and had kept a phaeton, he said. He boasted that he stood up
   litigiously for the interests of the college; and he had undefined and
   undefinable ideas that the marshal intercepted a 'Fund,' which ought to
   come to the collegians. He liked to believe this, and always impressed
   the shadowy grievance on new-comers and strangers; though he could not,
   for his life, have explained what Fund he meant, or how the notion had
   got rooted in his soul. He had fully convinced himself, notwithstanding,
   that his own proper share of the Fund was three and ninepence a week;
and that in this amount he, as an individual collegian, was swindled by
the marshal, regularly every Monday. Apparently, he helped to make the
bed, that he might not lose an opportunity of stating this case; after
which unloading of his mind, and after announcing (as it seemed he
        always did, without anything coming of it) that he was going to write a
letter to the papers and show the marshal up, he fell into miscellaneous
conversation with the rest. It was evident from the general tone of the
whole party, that they had come to regard insolvency as the normal state
of mankind, and the payment of debts as a disease that occasionally
broke out.

In this strange scene, and with these strange spectres flitting about
him, Arthur Clennam looked on at the preparations as if they were part
of a dream. Pending which, the long-initiated Tip, with an awful
enjoyment of the Snuggery's resources, pointed out the common kitchen
fire maintained by subscription of collegians, the boiler for hot water
supported in like manner, and other premises generally tending to the
deduction that the way to be healthy, wealthy, and wise, was to come to
the Marshalsea.

The two tables put together in a corner, were, at length, converted into
a very fair bed; and the stranger was left to the Windsor chairs,
  the presidential tribune, the beery atmosphere, sawdust, pipe-lights,
  spittoons and repose. But the last item was long, long, long, in linking
  itself to the rest. The novelty of the place, the coming upon it without
  preparation, the sense of being locked up, the remembrance of that room
  up-stairs, of the two brothers, and above all of the retiring childish
  form, and the face in which he now saw years of insufficient food, if
  not of want, kept him waking and unhappy.

  Speculations, too, bearing the strangest relations towards the prison,
  but always concerning the prison, ran like nightmares through his mind
  while he lay awake. Whether coffins were kept ready for people who might
  die there, where they were kept, how they were kept, where people who
  died in the prison were buried, how they were taken out, what forms were
  observed, whether an implacable creditor could arrest the dead? As to
  escaping, what chances there were of escape? Whether a prisoner could
  scale the walls with a cord and grapple, how he would descend upon
  the other side? whether he could alight on a housetop, steal down a
  staircase, let himself out at a door, and get lost in the crowd? As to
  Fire in the prison, if one were to break out while he lay there?

  And these involuntary starts of fancy were, after all, but the setting
  of a picture in which three people kept before him. His father, with the
  steadfast look with which he had died, prophetically darkened forth in
  the portrait; his mother, with her arm up, warding off his suspicion;
  Little Dorrit, with her hand on the degraded arm, and her drooping head
  turned away.

  What if his mother had an old reason she well knew for softening to
  this poor girl! What if the prisoner now sleeping quietly--Heaven grant
  it!--by the light of the great Day of judgment should trace back his
  fall to her. What if any act of hers and of his father's, should have
  even remotely brought the grey heads of those two brothers so low!

  A swift thought shot into his mind. In that long imprisonment here, and
  in her own long confinement to her room, did his mother find a balance
  to be struck? 'I admit that I was accessory to that man's captivity. I
  have suffered for it in kind. He has decayed in his prison: I in mine. I
  have paid the penalty.'

  When all the other thoughts had faded out, this one held possession
  of him. When he fell asleep, she came before him in her wheeled chair,
  warding him off with this justification. When he awoke, and sprang up
  causelessly frightened, the words were in his ears, as if her voice had
  slowly spoken them at his pillow, to break his rest: 'He withers away in
  his prison; I wither away in mine; inexorable justice is done; what do I
  owe on this score!'

 Arthur's stalking has paid off and he gets to the gates of the Marshalsea. As luck would have it, he runs into Frederick Dorrit, who explains some of the deal about Little Dorrit and how her dad is supposed to be kept in the dark about her working. They go into Dorrit's room, where he is about to eat dinner. Dorrit acts like a king in his kingdom, all patronizing and condescending to Arthur. Then he hits Arthur up for money, telling him a long story about how everyone who meets the Father of the Marshalsea likes to give him a little something. Little Dorrit is totally embarrassed but also seems proud of daddy dearest. Fanny and Tip come by to pick up clean clothes - Little Dorrit apparently does their laundry. The bell starts ringing and everyone hurries Arthur to get away - the bell means the gate is about to close for the night. Arthur slips some coins to Dorrit, then chases after Little Dorrit to tell her that he wants to be her special friend. No, not like that! Get your minds out of the gutter. He just wants to be some kind of protector to her. Then Arthur asks how his mom found her in the first place, and Little Dorrit tells him that she put up some ads and Mrs. Clennam contacted her through one of them. Oops, too long talking with Little Dorrit - the gate has been locked and Arthur is trapped for the night in the prison. Tip takes him to the "Snuggery" - the prison bar and inn - where they make him up a bed. Oh, wait - this might be the moment for Shmoop to tell you that if you're picturing the prison as a modern jail, with cells and bars, you've got it all wrong. It's more like a medieval castle town: there's a tall wall all around, but inside it's a bunch of little houses and shops. It has its own little economy: the bar has a waiter and a bartender, and there are messengers and clerks . On top of that, any prisoner who knows a trade seems to practice it . Anyhoodle. Arthur goes to sleep wondering if his mom knows something about Little Dorrit that's making her act nice to her. Is she doing a kind of voluntary prison sentence in her room to somehow make up for Little Dorrit's imprisonment with her dad?

