 the three
passed this interval together at the best hotel in the neighbourhood - though
truly, as Miss Fanny said, the best was very indifferent. In connection with
that establishment, Mr. Tip hired a cabriolet, horse, and groom, a very neat
turnout, which was usually to be observed for two or three hours at a time,
gracing the Borough High Street, outside the Marshalsea court-yard. A modest
little hired chariot and pair was also frequently to be seen there; in alighting
from and entering which vehicle, Miss Fanny fluttered the Marshal's daughters by
the display of inaccessible bonnets.
    A great deal of business was transacted in this short period. Among other
items, Messrs. Peddle and Pool, solicitors, of Monument Yard, were instructed by
their client Edward Dorrit, Esquire, to address a letter to Mr. Arthur Clennam,
enclosing the sum of twenty-four pounds nine shillings and eightpence, being the
amount of principal and interest computed at the rate of five per cent. per
annum, in which their client believed himself to be indebted to Mr. Clennam. In
making this communication and remittance, Messrs. Peddle and Pool were further
instructed by their client to remind Mr. Clennam, that the favour of the advance
now repaid (including gate-fees) had not been asked of him, and to inform him
that it would not have been accepted if it had been openly proffered in his
name. With which they requested a stamped receipt, and remained his obedient
servants. A great deal of business had likewise to be done, within the
so-soon-to-be-orphaned Marshalsea, by Mr. Dorrit so long its Father, chiefly
arising out of applications made to him by Collegians for small sums of money.
To these he responded with the greatest liberality, and with no lack of
formality; always first writing to appoint a time at which the applicant might
wait upon him in his room, and then receiving him in the midst of a vast
accumulation of documents, and accompanying his donation (for he said in every
such case, »it is a donation, not a loan«) with a great deal of good counsel: to
the effect that he, the expiring Father of the Marshalsea, hoped to be long
remembered, as an example that a man might preserve his own and the general
respect even there.
    The Collegians were not envious. Besides that they had a personal and
traditional regard for a Collegian of so many years' standing, the event was
creditable to the College, and made it famous in the newspapers. Perhaps more
