he could get there. So he went back to the Circumlocution
Office, and once more sent up his card to Barnacle junior by a messenger
who took it very ill indeed that he should come back again, and who was
eating mashed potatoes and gravy behind a partition by the hall fire.

He was readmitted to the presence of Barnacle junior, and found that
young gentleman singeing his knees now, and gaping his weary way on
to four o'clock. 'I say. Look here. You stick to us in a devil of a
manner,' Said Barnacle junior, looking over his shoulder.

'I want to know--'

'Look here. Upon my soul you mustn't come into the place saying you
want to know, you know,' remonstrated Barnacle junior, turning about and
putting up the eye-glass.

'I want to know,' said Arthur Clennam, who had made up his mind to
persistence in one short form of words, 'the precise nature of the claim
of the Crown against a prisoner for debt, named Dorrit.'

'I say. Look here. You really are going it at a great pace, you know.
Egad, you haven't got an appointment,' said Barnacle junior, as if the
thing were growing serious.

'I want to know,' said Arthur, and repeated his case.

Barnacle junior stared at him until his eye-glass fell out, and then
put it in again and stared at him until it fell out again. 'You have
no right to come this sort of move,' he then observed with the greatest
weakness. 'Look here. What do you mean? You told me you didn't know
whether it was public business or not.'

'I have now ascertained that it is public business,' returned the
suitor, 'and I want to know'--and again repeated his monotonous inquiry.

Its effect upon young Barnacle was to make him repeat in a defenceless
way, 'Look here! Upon my SOUL you mustn't come into the place saying you
want to know, you know!' The effect of that upon Arthur Clennam was
to make him repeat his inquiry in exactly the same words and tone
as before. The effect of that upon young Barnacle was to make him a
wonderful spectacle of failure and helplessness.

'Well, I tell you what. Look here. You had better try the Secretarial
Department,' he said at last, sidling to the bell and ringing it.
'Jenkinson,' to the mashed potatoes messenger, 'Mr Wobbler!'

Arthur Clennam, who now felt that he had devoted himself to the storming
of the Circumlocution Office, and must go through with it, accompanied
the messenger to another floor of the building, where that functionary
pointed out Mr Wobbler's room. He