Page 187 (1/2)

Little Dorrit had not attained her twenty-second birthday without

finding a lover Even in the shallow Marshalsea, the ever young Archer

shot off a few featherless arro and then froian or two Little Dorrit's lover, however, was not a Collegian

He was the sentimental son of a turnkey His father hoped, in the fulness of time,

to leave him the inheritance of an unstained key; and had from his

early youth familiarised him with the duties of his office, and with an

ambition to retain the prison-lock in the family While the succession

was yet in abeyance, he assisted his

tobacco business round the corner of Horse

a non-resident turnkey), which could usually coone, when the object of his affections ont to sit in her

little ar John (family name,

Chivery), a year older than herself, had eyed her with ad wonder

When he had played with her in the yard, his favourite ga her up in corners, and to counterfeit letting

her out for real kisses When he grew tall enough to peep through the

keyhole of the great lock of the main door, he had divers tiet on as itcold in one eye by dint of peeping at her

through that airy perspective

If Young John had ever slackened in his truth in the less penetrable

days of his boyhood, when youth is prone to wear its boots unlaced and

is happily unconscious of digestive organs, he had soon strung it up

again and screwed it tight At nineteen, his hand had inscribed in chalk