Read this excerpt from "The Signalman." "He had taught himself a language down here—if only to know it by sight, and to have formed his own crude ideas of its pronunciation, could be called learning it. He had also worked at fractions and decimals, and tried a little algebra; but he was, and had been as a boy, a poor hand at figures." Why does Dickens include this description?
A. It establishes the character's credibility as a real person. B. It lends a suspicion that the character is a ghost.
C. It adds interesting detail the reader would otherwise not know.
D. It reveals the conflict between the narrator and the signalman.
