Some said he was poor, some said he was a wealthy
miser; but he said nothing, never lifted up his bowed head, never varied
his shuffling gait by getting his springless foot from the ground.
Though expecting now to be summoned by his niece, he did not hear her
until she had spoken to him three or four times; nor was he at all
surprised by the presence of two nieces instead of one, but merely said
in his tremulous voice, 'I am coming, I am coming!' and crept forth by
some underground way which emitted a cellarous smell.
'And so, Amy,' said her sister, when the three together passed out at
the door that had such a shame-faced consciousness of being different
from other doors: the uncle instinctively taking Amy's arm as the arm to
be relied on: 'so, Amy, you are curious about me?'
She was pretty, and conscious, and rather flaunting; and the
condescension with which she put aside the superiority of her charms,
and of her worldly experience, and addressed her sister on almost equal
terms, had a vast deal of the family in it. 'I am interested, Fanny, and concerned in anything that concerns you.'
'So you are, so you are, and you are the best of Amys. If I am ever a
little provoking, I am sure you'll consider what a thing it is to
occupy my position and feel a consciousness of being superior to it. I
shouldn't care,' said the Daughter of the Father of the Marshalsea, 'if
the others were not so common. None of them have come down in the world
as we have. They are all on their own level. Common.'
Little Dorrit mildly looked at the speaker, but did not interrupt her.
Fanny took out her handkerchief, and rather angrily wiped her eyes. 'I
was not born where you were, you know, Amy, and perhaps that makes a
difference. My dear child, when we get rid of Uncle, you shall know all
about it. We'll drop him at the cook's shop where he is going to dine.'
They walked on with him until they came to a dirty shop window in a
dirty street, which was made almost opaque by the steam of hot meats,
vegetables, and puddings. But glimpses were to be caught of a roast leg
of pork bursting into tears of sage and onion in a metal reservoir full
of gravy, of an unctuous piece of roast beef and blisterous Yorkshire
pudding, bubbling hot in a similar receptacle, of a stuffed fillet of
veal in rapid cut, of a ham in a perspiration with the pace it was going
at, of a shallow tank of baked potatoes glued together by their own
richness, of a truss or two of boiled greens, and other substantial
delicacies.