they were eternally going to the pawnbroker's. When they coughed, they
coughed like people accustomed to be forgotten on doorsteps and in
draughty passages, waiting for answers to letters in faded ink, which
gave the recipients of those manuscripts great mental disturbance and no
satisfaction. As they eyed the stranger in passing, they eyed him with
borrowing eyes--hungry, sharp, speculative as to his softness if they
were accredited to him, and the likelihood of his standing something
handsome. Mendicity on commission stooped in their high shoulders,
shambled in their unsteady legs, buttoned and pinned and darned and
dragged their clothes, frayed their button-holes, leaked out of their
figures in dirty little ends of tape, and issued from their mouths in
alcoholic breathings.

As these people passed him standing still in the court-yard, and one of
them turned back to inquire if he could assist him with his services,
it came into Arthur Clennam's mind that he would speak to Little Dorrit
again before he went away. She would have recovered her first surprise,
and might feel easier with him. He asked this member of the fraternity
(who had two red herrings in his hand, and a loaf and a blacking brush
under his arm), where was the nearest place to get a cup of coffee
at. The nondescript replied in encouraging terms, and brought him to a
coffee-shop in the street within a stone's throw.

'Do you know Miss Dorrit?' asked the new client.

The nondescript knew two Miss Dorrits; one who was born inside--That was
the one! That was the one? The nondescript had known her many years.
In regard of the other Miss Dorrit, the nondescript lodged in the same
house with herself and uncle.

This changed the client's half-formed design of remaining at the
coffee-shop until the nondescript should bring him word that Dorrit
had issued forth into the street. He entrusted the nondescript with a
confidential message to her, importing that the visitor who had waited
on her father last night, begged the favour of a few words with her at
her uncle's lodging; he obtained from the same source full directions to
the house, which was very near; dismissed the nondescript gratified with
half-a-crown; and having hastily refreshed himself at the coffee-shop,
repaired with all speed to the clarionet-player's dwelling.

There were so many lodgers in this house that the doorpost seemed to be
as full of bell-handles as a cathedral organ is of stops. Doubtf