‘You would be more glad if you knew his many good qualities, Mr Clennam.’
‘I hope I shall come to know them through knowing him,’ said Arthur, secretly pitying the bowed and submissive figure.
‘It is a holiday with him, and he comes to see his old friends, who are always glad to see him,’ observed the Father of the Marshalsea. Then he added behind his hand, (‘Union, poor old fellow. Out for the day.’)
[Original]
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.’)