. Ah, yes, yes!
You call her Little Dorrit?'

No road in that direction. Nothing came of the cross-cut. It led no
further.

'My daughter Flora,' said Mr Casby, 'as you may have heard probably, Mr
Clennam, was married and established in life, several years ago. She
had the misfortune to lose her husband when she had been married a few
months. She resides with me again. She will be glad to see you, if you
will permit me to let her know that you are here.'

'By all means,' returned Clennam. 'I should have preferred the request,
if your kindness had not anticipated me.'

Upon this Mr Casby rose up in his list shoes, and with a slow, heavy
step (he was of an elephantine build), made for the door. He had a long
wide-skirted bottle-green coat on, and a bottle-green pair of trousers,
and a bottle-green waistcoat. The Patriarchs were not dressed in
bottle-green broadcloth, and yet his clothes looked patriarchal.

He had scarcely left the room, and allowed the ticking to become audible
again, when a quick hand turned a latchkey in the house-door, opened it,
and shut it. Immediately afterwards, a quick and eager short dark man
came into the room with so much way upon him that he was within a foot
of Clennam before he could stop.

'Halloa!' he said.

Clennam saw no reason why he should not say 'Halloa!' too.

'What's the matter?' said the short dark man.

'I have not heard that anything is the matter,' returned Clennam.

'Where's Mr Casby?' asked the short dark man, looking about. 'He will be
here directly, if you want him.'

'_I_ want him?' said the short dark man. 'Don't you?' This elicited a
word or two of explanation from Clennam, during the delivery of which
the short dark man held his breath and looked at him. He was dressed in
black and rusty iron grey; had jet black beads of eyes; a scrubby little
black chin; wiry black hair striking out from his head in prongs, like
forks or hair-pins; and a complexion that was very dingy by nature, or
very dirty by art, or a compound of nature and art. He had dirty hands
and dirty broken nails, and looked as if he had been in the coals; he
was in a perspiration, and snorted and sniffed and puffed and blew, like
a little labouring steam-engine.

'Oh!' said he, when Arthur told him how he came to be there. 'Very well.
That's right. If he should ask for Pancks, will you be so good as to say
that Pancks is come in?' And so, with a snort and a puff, he worked out
by another door