The Old Curiosity Shop

The narrator’s voice returns, offering to “take the friendly reader by the hand” and go visit Mr. Sampson Brass in Bevis Marks (233). Brass is a lawyer whom Quilp keeps on retainer. His office is dusty, full of cobwebs, and messy with documents and other belongings. His sister, Sarah (“Sally”), works as his clerk, though it is soon clear that she is more knowledgeable and more in charge than Sampson is. The Brasses debate hiring a clerk Mr. Quilp referred, and at that very moment Mr. Quilp himself appears in their window. He introduces the clerk he proposed: none other than Dick Swiveller. Quilp put Dick up for the job so he can keep a closer eye on him as the search for Nell continues. Sampson and Quilp leave to have a private conversation in the other room. Dick seems caught off guard by Sally, “staring with all his might […] as if she had been some curious animal whose like had never lived” (239). He calms his agitated feelings by fidgeting with a ruler.