"Can you tell me—I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you cannot—who is the most influential of them?"
Little Dorrit was not sure of any names, but she had heard her father mention several people with whom he said he once had dealings. She told him these names, and Clennam made a careful note of them.
"It can do no harm," he thought, "to see some of these people."
The thought did not come so quietly but that she quickly guessed it.
"Ah," said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild despair of a lifetime. "Many people used to think once of getting my poor father out, but you don't know how hopeless it is."
She forgot to be shy at the moment, in honestly warning him away from the sunken wreck he had a dream of raising; and looked at him with eyes which assuredly, in association with her patient face, her fragile figure, her spare dress, and the wind and rain, did not turn him from his purpose of helping her.
But presently an incident happened which showed him a new side to her life—still of helpfulness and service.
They were come into the High Street, where the prison stood, when a voice cried, "Little mother, little mother!"
Little Dorrit stopped, looking back, when an excited figure of a strange kind bounced against them, fell down, and scattered the contents of a large basket, filled with potatoes, in the mud.
"Oh, Maggy," said Little Dorrit, "what a clumsy child you are!"