Has he many creditors ?' 'Oh! a great number.' 'I mean detaining creditors, who keep him where he is ?' 'Oh yes! a great number.' 'Can you tell me--I can get the information, no doubt, elsewhere, if you cannot--who is the most influential of them ?' Little Dorrit said, after considering a little, that she used to hear long ago of Mr Tite Barnacle as a man of great power.

He was a commissioner, or a board, or a trustee, 'or something.' He lived in Grosvenor Square, she thought, or very near it.

He was under Government--high in the Circumlocution Office.

She appeared to have acquired, in her infancy, some awful impression of the might of this formidable Mr Tite Barnacle of Grosvenor Square, or very near it, and the Circumlocution Office, which quite crushed her when she mentioned him.
'It can do no harm,' thought Arthur, 'if I see this Mr Tite Barnacle.' The thought did not present itself so quietly but that her quickness intercepted it.

'Ah!' said Little Dorrit, shaking her head with the mild despair of a lifetime.