Word of the Day: Dun

I noticed that half the class not only missed #37 on the vocabulary test, but those who missed it insisted that the answer was not in the list of choices from which to choose. The word is "dun" and is used in "Bartleby the Scrivener" in the following sentence, when the narrator is commenting upon the mysterious gents who pay visits to Nippers:

I have good reason to believe, however, that one individual who called upon him at my chambers, and who, with a grand air, he insisted was his client, was no other than a dun, and the alleged title-deed, a bill.

Many of you wrote in the little space for the answer: "dullish brown." Now, I ask you: Does "dullish brown" fit in for "dun" in the above sentence? Did Nippers have mysterious dull-brown men stalking him? Uh, no.

So what is "dun"?

Dun: (v) to importune a debtor for payment; to make repeated and insistent demands, especially concerning an overdue payment; (n) one who duns.

So, in the above statement about Nippers, the reader should understand that the man who visited the office was a creditor coming to collect a payment for a debt.

Yes, dun does has another meaning. It is a kind of horse of a dullish brown color. But again, Nippers was visited by a creditor, not a horse.