m,' observed the Father of the Marshalsea.

Then he added behind his hand, ('Union, poor old fellow. Out for the
day.')

By this time Maggy, quietly assisted by her Little Mother, had spread
the board, and the repast was ready. It being hot weather and the prison
very close, the window was as wide open as it could be pushed. 'If Maggy
will spread that newspaper on the window-sill, my dear,' remarked the
Father complacently and in a half whisper to Little Dorrit, 'my old
pensioner can have his tea there, while we are having ours.'

So, with a gulf between him and the good company of about a foot in
width, standard measure, Mrs Plornish's father was handsomely regaled.
Clennam had never seen anything like his magnanimous protection by that
other Father, he of the Marshalsea; and was lost in the contemplation of
its many wonders.

The most striking of these was perhaps the relishing manner in which he
remarked on the pensioner's infirmities and failings, as if he were
a gracious Keeper making a running commentary on the decline of the
harmless animal he exhibited.

'Not ready for more ham yet, Nandy? Why, how slow you are! (His last
teeth,' he explained to the company, 'are going, poor old boy.')

At another time, he said, 'No shrimps, Nandy?' and on his not instantly
replying, observed, ('His hearing is becoming very defective. He'll be
deaf directly.')

At another time he asked him, 'Do you walk much, Nandy, about the yard
within the walls of that place of yours?'

'No, sir; no. I haven't any great liking for that.'

'No, to be sure,' he assented. 'Very natural.' Then he privately
informed the circle ('Legs going.')

Once he asked the pensioner, in that general clemency which asked him
anything to keep him afloat, how old his younger grandchild was?

'John Edward,' said the pensioner, slowly laying down his knife and fork
to consider. 'How old, sir? Let me think now.'

The Father of the Marshalsea tapped his forehead ('Memory weak.')

'John Edward, sir? Well, I really forget. I couldn't say at this minute,
sir, whether it's two and two months, or whether it's two and five
months. It's one or the other.'

'Don't distress yourself by worrying your mind about it,' he returned,
with infinite forbearance. ('Faculties evidently decaying--old man rusts
in the life he leads!')

The more of these discoveries that he persuaded himself he made in the
pensioner, the better he appeared to like him; and when he got o