er twenty in? Now, I'll give you a month.' Then
said Captain Maroon, when that wouldn't suit, 'Now, I'll tell what I'll
do with you. You shall get me a good bill at four months, made payable
at a banking-house, for the other twenty!' Then said Captain Maroon,
when THAT wouldn't suit, 'Now, come; Here's the last I've got to say
to you. You shall give me another ten down, and I'll run my pen clean
through it.' Then said Captain Maroon when THAT wouldn't suit, 'Now,
I'll tell you what it is, and this shuts it up; he has used me bad, but
I'll let him off for another five down and a bottle of wine; and if you
mean done, say done, and if you don't like it, leave it.' Finally said
Captain Maroon, when THAT wouldn't suit either, 'Hand over, then!'--And
in consideration of the first offer, gave a receipt in full and
discharged the prisoner.

'Mr Plornish,' said Arthur, 'I trust to you, if you please, to keep my
secret. If you will undertake to let the young man know that he is free,
and to tell him that you were employed to compound for the debt by
some one whom you are not at liberty to name, you will not only do me a
service, but may do him one, and his sister also.'

'The last reason, sir,' said Plornish, 'would be quite sufficient. Your
wishes shall be attended to.'

'A Friend has obtained his discharge, you can say if you please. A
Friend who hopes that for his sister's sake, if for no one else's, he
will make good use of his liberty.'

'Your wishes, sir, shall be attended to.'

'And if you will be so good, in your better knowledge of the family, as
to communicate freely with me, and to point out to me any means by which
you think I may be delicately and really useful to Little Dorrit, I
shall feel under an obligation to you.'

'Don't name it, sir,' returned Plornish, 'it'll be ekally a pleasure an
a--it'l be ekally a pleasure and a--' Finding himself unable to balance
his sentence after two efforts, Mr Plornish wisely dropped it. He took
Clennam's card and appropriate pecuniary compliment.

He was earnest to finish his commission at once, and his Principal
was in the same mind. So his Principal offered to set him down at the
Marshalsea Gate, and they drove in that direction over Blackfriars
Bridge. On the way, Arthur elicited from his new friend a confused
summary of the interior life of Bleeding Heart Yard. They was all hard
up there, Mr Plornish said, uncommon hard up, to be sure. Well, he
couldn't say how it was