ul
which might be the clarionet-stop, he was considering the point, when a
shuttlecock flew out of the parlour window, and alighted on his hat.
He then observed that in the parlour window was a blind with the
inscription, MR CRIPPLES's ACADEMY; also in another line, EVENING
TUITION; and behind the blind was a little white-faced boy, with a slice
of bread-and-butter and a battledore.

The window being accessible from the footway, he looked in over the
blind, returned the shuttlecock, and put his question.

'Dorrit?' said the little white-faced boy (Master Cripples in fact). 'Mr
Dorrit? Third bell and one knock.' The pupils of Mr Cripples appeared to
have been making a copy-book of the street-door, it was so extensively
scribbled over in pencil.

The frequency of the inscriptions, 'Old Dorrit,' and 'Dirty Dick,'
in combination, suggested intentions of personality on the part Of
Mr Cripples's pupils. There was ample time to make these observations
before the door was opened by the poor old man himself.

'Ha!' said he, very slowly remembering Arthur, 'you were shut in last
night?'

'Yes, Mr Dorrit. I hope to meet your niece here presently.'

'Oh!' said he, pondering. 'Out of my brother's way? True. Would you come
up-stairs and wait for her?'

'Thank you.'

Turning himself as slowly as he turned in his mind whatever he heard or
said, he led the way up the narrow stairs. The house was very close, and
had an unwholesome smell. The little staircase windows looked in at the
back windows of other houses as unwholesome as itself, with poles and
lines thrust out of them, on which unsightly linen hung; as if the
inhabitants were angling for clothes, and had had some wretched bites
not worth attending to. In the back garret--a sickly room, with a
turn-up bedstead in it, so hastily and recently turned up that the
blankets were boiling over, as it were, and keeping the lid open--a
half-finished breakfast of coffee and toast for two persons was jumbled
down anyhow on a rickety table.

There was no one there. The old man mumbling to himself, after some
consideration, that Fanny had run away, went to the next room to fetch
her back. The visitor, observing that she held the door on the inside,
and that, when the uncle tried to open it, there was a sharp adjuration
of 'Don't, stupid!' and an appearance of loose stocking and flannel,
concluded that the young lady was in an undress. The uncle, without
appearing to come to any conc