Chapter 8 - Page 2

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