‘My first.’
‘You could hardly have been here since your boyhood without my knowledge. It very seldom happens that anybody—of any pretensions—any pretensions—comes here without being presented to me.’
‘As many as forty or fifty in a day have been introduced to my brother,’ said Frederick, faintly lighting up with a ray of pride.
‘Yes!’ the Father of the Marshalsea assented. ‘We have even exceeded that number. On a fine Sunday in term time, it is quite a Levee—quite a Levee. Amy, my dear, I have been trying half the day to remember the name of the gentleman from Camberwell who was introduced to me last Christmas week by that agreeable coal-merchant who was remanded for six months.’
‘I don’t remember his name, father.’
‘Frederick, do you remember his name?’
Frederick doubted if he had ever heard it. No one could doubt that Frederick was the last person upon earth to put such a question to, with any hope of information.
‘I mean,’ said his brother, ‘the gentleman who did that handsome action with so much delicacy. Ha! Tush! The name has quite escaped me. Mr Clennam, as I have happened to mention handsome and delicate action, you may like, perhaps, to know what it was.’
‘Very much,’ said Arthur, withdrawing his eyes from the delicate head beginning to droop and the pale face with a new solicitude stealing over it.
‘It is so generous, and shows so much fine feeling, that it is almost a duty to mention it. I said at the time that I always would mention it on every suitable occasion, without regard to personal sensitiveness. A—well—a—it’s of no use to disguise the fact—you must know, Mr Clennam, that it does sometimes occur that people who come here desire to offer some little—Testimonial—to the Father of the place.’