Chapter XI - A Picture and a Ring

The Mystery of Edwin Drood

by Charles Dickens

Behind the most ancient part of Holborn, London, where certain
gabled houses some centuries of age still stand looking on the
public way, as if disconsolately looking for the Old Bourne that has
long run dry, is a little nook composed of two irregular
quadrangles, called Staple Inn. It is one of those nooks, the
turning into which out of the clashing street, imparts to the
relieved pedestrian the sensation of having put cotton in his ears,
and velvet soles on his boots. It is one of those nooks where a few
smoky sparrows twitter in smoky trees, as though they called to one
another, 'Let us play at country,' and where a few feet of
garden-mould and a few yards of gravel enable them to do that
refreshing violence to their tiny understandings. Moreover, it is
one of those nooks which are legal nooks; and it contains a little
Hall, with a little lantern in its roof: to what obstructive
purposes devoted, and at whose expense, this history knoweth not.

In the days when Cloisterham took offence at the existence of a
railroad afar off, as menacing that sensitive constitution, the
property of us Britons: the odd fortune of which sacred institution
it is to be in exactly equal degrees croaked about, trembled for,
and boasted of, whatever happens to anything, anywhere in the world:
in those days no neighbouring architecture of lofty proportions had
arisen to overshadow Staple Inn. The westering sun bestowed bright
glances on it, and the south-west wind blew into it unimpeded.

Neither wind nor sun, however, favoured Staple Inn one December
afternoon towards six o'clock, when it was filled with fog, and
candles shed murky and blurred rays through the windows of all its
then-occupied sets of chambers; notably from a set of chambers in a
corner house in the little inner quadrangle, presenting in black and
white over its ugly portal the mysterious inscription:

P J T 1747 In which set of
chambers, never having troubled his head about the inscription,
unless to bethink himself at odd times on glancing up at it, that
haply it might mean Perhaps John Thomas, or Perhaps Joe Tyler, sat
Mr. Grewgious writing by his fire.

Who could have told, by looking at Mr. Grewgious, whether he had
ever known ambition or disappointment? He had been bred to the
Bar, and had laid himself out for chamber practice; to draw deeds;
'convey the wise it call,' as Pistol says. But Conveyancing and he
had made such a very indifferent marriage of it that they had
separated by consent - if there can be said to be separation where
there has never been coming together.

No. Coy Conveyancing would not come to Mr. Grewgious. She was
wooed, not won, and they went their several ways. But an
Arbitration being blown towards him by some unaccountable wind, and
he gaining great credit in it as one indefatigable in seeking out
right and doing right, a pretty fat Receivership was next blown into
his pocket by a wind more traceable to its source. So, by chance,
he had found his niche. Receiver and Agent now, to two rich
estates, and deputing their legal business, in an amount worth
having, to a firm of solicitors on the floor below, he had snuffed
out his ambition (supposing him to have ever lighted it), and had
settled down with his snuffers for the rest of his life under the
dry vine and fig-tree of P. J. T., who planted in seventeen-forty-
seven.

Many accounts and account-books, many files of correspondence,
and several strong boxes, garnished Mr. Grewgious's room. They can
scarcely be represented as having lumbered it, so conscientious and
precise was their orderly arrangement. The apprehension of dying
suddenly, and leaving one fact or one figure with any incompleteness
or obscurity attaching to it, would have stretched Mr. Grewgious
stone-dead any day. The largest fidelity to a trust was the
life-blood of the man. There are sorts of life-blood that course
more quickly, more gaily, more attractively; but there is no better
sort in circulation.

There was no luxury in his room. Even its comforts were limited
to its being dry and warm, and having a snug though faded fireside.
What may be called its private life was confined to the hearth, and
all easy-chair, and an old-fashioned occasional round table that was
brought out upon the rug after business hours, from a corner where
it elsewise remained turned up like a shining mahogany shield.
Behind it, when standing thus on the defensive, was a closet,
usually containing something good to drink. An outer room was the
clerk's room; Mr. Grewgious's sleeping-room was across the common
stair; and he held some not empty cellarage at the bottom of the
common stair. Three hundred days in the year, at least, he crossed
over to the hotel in Furnival's Inn for his dinner, and after dinner
crossed back again, to make the most of these simplicities until it
should become broad business day once more, with P. J. T., date
seventeen-forty-seven.

As Mr. Grewgious sat and wrote by his fire that afternoon, so
did the clerk of Mr. Grewgious sit and write by his fire. A pale,
puffy-faced, dark-haired person of thirty, with big dark eyes that
wholly wanted lustre, and a dissatisfied doughy complexion, that
seemed to ask to be sent to the baker's, this attendant was a
mysterious being, possessed of some strange power over Mr.
Grewgious. As though he had been called into existence, like a
fabulous Familiar, by a magic spell which had failed when required
to dismiss him, he stuck tight to Mr. Grewgious's stool, although
Mr. Grewgious's comfort and convenience would manifestly have been
advanced by dispossessing him. A gloomy person with tangled locks,
and a general air of having been reared under the shadow of that
baleful tree of Java which has given shelter to more lies than the
whole botanical kingdom, Mr. Grewgious, nevertheless, treated him
with unaccountable consideration.

'Now, Bazzard,' said Mr. Grewgious, on the entrance of his
clerk: looking up from his papers as he arranged them for the
night: 'what is in the wind besides fog?'

'Mr. Drood,' said Bazzard.

'What of him?'

'Has called,' said Bazzard.

'You might have shown him in.'

'I am doing it,' said Bazzard.

The visitor came in accordingly.

'Dear me!' said Mr. Grewgious, looking round his pair of office
candles. 'I thought you had called and merely left your name and
gone. How do you do, Mr. Edwin? Dear me, you're choking!'

'It's this fog,' returned Edwin; 'and it makes my eyes smart,
like Cayenne pepper.'

'Is it really so bad as that? Pray undo your wrappers. It's
fortunate I have so good a fire; but Mr. Bazzard has taken care of
me.'

'No I haven't,' said Mr. Bazzard at the door.

'Ah! then it follows that I must have taken care of myself
without observing it,' said Mr. Grewgious. 'Pray be seated in my
chair. No. I beg! Coming out of such an atmosphere, in my
chair.'

Edwin took the easy-chair in the corner; and the fog he had
brought in with him, and the fog he took off with his greatcoat and
neck- shawl, was speedily licked up by the eager fire.

'I look,' said Edwin, smiling, 'as if I had come to stop.'

' - By the by,' cried Mr. Grewgious; 'excuse my interrupting
you; do stop. The fog may clear in an hour or two. We can have
dinner in from just across Holborn. You had better take your
Cayenne pepper here than outside; pray stop and dine.'

'You are very kind,' said Edwin, glancing about him as though
attracted by the notion of a new and relishing sort of
gipsy-party.

'Not at all,' said Mr. Grewgious; 'you are very kind to join
issue with a bachelor in chambers, and take pot-luck. And I'll
ask,' said Mr. Grewgious, dropping his voice, and speaking with a
twinkling eye, as if inspired with a bright thought: 'I'll ask
Bazzard. He mightn't like it else. - Bazzard!'

Bazzard reappeared.

'Dine presently with Mr. Drood and me.'

'If I am ordered to dine, of course I will, sir,' was the gloomy
answer.

'Save the man!' cried Mr. Grewgious. 'You're not ordered;
you're invited.'

'Thank you, sir,' said Bazzard; 'in that case I don't care if I
do.'

'That's arranged. And perhaps you wouldn't mind,' said Mr.
Grewgious, 'stepping over to the hotel in Furnival's, and asking
them to send in materials for laying the cloth. For dinner we'll
have a tureen of the hottest and strongest soup available, and we'll
have the best made-dish that can be recommended, and we'll have a
joint (such as a haunch of mutton), and we'll have a goose, or a
turkey, or any little stuffed thing of that sort that may happen to
be in the bill of fare - in short, we'll have whatever there is on
hand.'

These liberal directions Mr. Grewgious issued with his usual air
of reading an inventory, or repeating a lesson, or doing anything
else by rote. Bazzard, after drawing out the round table, withdrew
to execute them.

'I was a little delicate, you see,' said Mr. Grewgious, in a
lower tone, after his clerk's departure, 'about employing him in the
foraging or commissariat department. Because he mightn't like
it.'

'He seems to have his own way, sir,' remarked Edwin.

'His own way?' returned Mr. Grewgious. 'O dear no! Poor
fellow, you quite mistake him. If he had his own way, he wouldn't
be here.'

'I wonder where he would be!' Edwin thought. But he only
thought it, because Mr. Grewgious came and stood himself with his
back to the other corner of the fire, and his shoulder-blades
against the chimneypiece, and collected his skirts for easy
conversation.

'I take it, without having the gift of prophecy, that you have
done me the favour of looking in to mention that you are going down
yonder - where I can tell you, you are expected - and to offer to
execute any little commission from me to my charming ward, and
perhaps to sharpen me up a bit in any proceedings? Eh, Mr.
Edwin?'

'I called, sir, before going down, as an act of attention.'

'Of attention!' said Mr. Grewgious. 'Ah! of course, not of
impatience?'

'Impatience, sir?'

Mr. Grewgious had meant to be arch - not that he in the remotest
degree expressed that meaning - and had brought himself into
scarcely supportable proximity with the fire, as if to burn the
fullest effect of his archness into himself, as other subtle
impressions are burnt into hard metals. But his archness suddenly
flying before the composed face and manner of his visitor, and only
the fire remaining, he started and rubbed himself.

'I have lately been down yonder,' said Mr. Grewgious,
rearranging his skirts; 'and that was what I referred to, when I
said I could tell you you are expected.'

'Indeed, sir! Yes; I knew that Pussy was looking out for
me.'

'Do you keep a cat down there?' asked Mr. Grewgious.

Edwin coloured a little as he explained: 'I call Rosa
Pussy.'

'O, really,' said Mr. Grewgious, smoothing down his head;
'that's very affable.'

Edwin glanced at his face, uncertain whether or no he seriously
objected to the appellation. But Edwin might as well have glanced
at the face of a clock.

'A pet name, sir,' he explained again.

'Umps,' said Mr. Grewgious, with a nod. But with such an
extraordinary compromise between an unqualified assent and a
qualified dissent, that his visitor was much disconcerted.

'Did Prosa - ' Edwin began by way of recovering himself.

'Prosa?' repeated Mr. Grewgious.

'I was going to say Pussy, and changed my mind; - did she tell
you anything about the Landlesses?'

'No,' said Mr. Grewgious. 'What is the Landlesses? An estate?
A villa? A farm?'

'A brother and sister. The sister is at the Nuns' House, and
has become a great friend of P - '

'Prosa's,' Mr. Grewgious struck in, with a fixed face.

'She is a strikingly handsome girl, sir, and I thought she might
have been described to you, or presented to you perhaps?'

'Neither,' said Mr. Grewgious. 'But here is Bazzard.'

Bazzard returned, accompanied by two waiters - an immovable
waiter, and a flying waiter; and the three brought in with them as
much fog as gave a new roar to the fire. The flying waiter, who had
brought everything on his shoulders, laid the cloth with amazing
rapidity and dexterity; while the immovable waiter, who had brought
nothing, found fault with him. The flying waiter then highly
polished all the glasses he had brought, and the immovable waiter
looked through them. The flying waiter then flew across Holborn for
the soup, and flew back again, and then took another flight for the
made-dish, and flew back again, and then took another flight for the
joint and poultry, and flew back again, and between whiles took
supplementary flights for a great variety of articles, as it was
discovered from time to time that the immovable waiter had forgotten
them all. But let the flying waiter cleave the air as he might, he
was always reproached on his return by the immovable waiter for
bringing fog with him, and being out of breath. At the conclusion
of the repast, by which time the flying waiter was severely blown,
the immovable waiter gathered up the tablecloth under his arm with a
grand air, and having sternly (not to say with indignation) looked
on at the flying waiter while he set the clean glasses round,
directed a valedictory glance towards Mr. Grewgious, conveying:
'Let it be clearly understood between us that the reward is mine,
and that Nil is the claim of this slave,' and pushed the flying
waiter before him out of the room.

It was like a highly-finished miniature painting representing My
Lords of the Circumlocution Department, Commandership-in-Chief of
any sort, Government. It was quite an edifying little picture to be
hung on the line in the National Gallery.

As the fog had been the proximate cause of this sumptuous
repast, so the fog served for its general sauce. To hear the
out-door clerks sneezing, wheezing, and beating their feet on the
gravel was a zest far surpassing Doctor Kitchener's. To bid, with a
shiver, the unfortunate flying waiter shut the door before he had
opened it, was a condiment of a profounder flavour than Harvey. And
here let it be noticed, parenthetically, that the leg of this young
man, in its application to the door, evinced the finest sense of
touch: always preceding himself and tray (with something of an
angling air about it), by some seconds: and always lingering after
he and the tray had disappeared, like Macbeth's leg when
accompanying him off the stage with reluctance to the assassination
of Duncan.

The host had gone below to the cellar, and had brought up
bottles of ruby, straw-coloured, and golden drinks, which had
ripened long ago in lands where no fogs are, and had since lain
slumbering in the shade. Sparkling and tingling after so long a
nap, they pushed at their corks to help the corkscrew (like
prisoners helping rioters to force their gates), and danced out
gaily. If P. J. T. in seventeen-forty-seven, or in any other year
of his period, drank such wines - then, for a certainty, P. J. T.
was Pretty Jolly Too.

Externally, Mr. Grewgious showed no signs of being mellowed by
these glowing vintages. Instead of his drinking them, they might
have been poured over him in his high-dried snuff form, and run to
waste, for any lights and shades they caused to flicker over his
face. Neither was his manner influenced. But, in his wooden way,
he had observant eyes for Edwin; and when at the end of dinner, he
motioned Edwin back to his own easy-chair in the fireside corner,
and Edwin sank luxuriously into it after very brief remonstrance,
Mr. Grewgious, as he turned his seat round towards the fire too, and
smoothed his head and face, might have been seen looking at his
visitor between his smoothing fingers.

'Bazzard!' said Mr. Grewgious, suddenly turning to him.

'I follow you, sir,' returned Bazzard; who had done his work of
consuming meat and drink in a workmanlike manner, though mostly in
speechlessness.

'I drink to you, Bazzard; Mr. Edwin, success to Mr. Bazzard!'

'Success to Mr. Bazzard!' echoed Edwin, with a totally unfounded
appearance of enthusiasm, and with the unspoken addition: 'What
in, I wonder!'

'And May!' pursued Mr. Grewgious - 'I am not at liberty to be
definite - May! - my conversational powers are so very limited that
I know I shall not come well out of this - May! - it ought to be put
imaginatively, but I have no imagination - May! - the thorn of
anxiety is as nearly the mark as I am likely to get - May it come
out at last!'

Mr. Bazzard, with a frowning smile at the fire, put a hand into
his tangled locks, as if the thorn of anxiety were there; then into
his waistcoat, as if it were there; then into his pockets, as if it
were there. In all these movements he was closely followed by the
eyes of Edwin, as if that young gentleman expected to see the thorn
in action. It was not produced, however, and Mr. Bazzard merely
said: 'I follow you, sir, and I thank you.'

'I am going,' said Mr. Grewgious, jingling his glass on the
table with one hand, and bending aside under cover of the other, to
whisper to Edwin, 'to drink to my ward. But I put Bazzard first.
He mightn't like it else.'

This was said with a mysterious wink; or what would have been a
wink, if, in Mr. Grewgious's hands, it could have been quick enough.
So Edwin winked responsively, without the least idea what he meant
by doing so.

'And now,' said Mr. Grewgious, 'I devote a bumper to the fair
and fascinating Miss Rosa. Bazzard, the fair and fascinating Miss
Rosa!'

'I follow you, sir,' said Bazzard, 'and I pledge you!'

'And so do I!' said Edwin.

'Lord bless me,' cried Mr. Grewgious, breaking the blank silence
which of course ensued: though why these pauses should come upon
us when we have performed any small social rite, not directly
inducive of self-examination or mental despondency, who can tell?
'I am a particularly Angular man, and yet I fancy (if I may use the
word, not having a morsel of fancy), that I could draw a picture of
a true lover's state of mind, to-night.'

'Let us follow you, sir,' said Bazzard, 'and have the
picture.'

'Mr. Edwin will correct it where it's wrong,' resumed Mr.
Grewgious, 'and will throw in a few touches from the life. I dare
say it is wrong in many particulars, and wants many touches from the
life, for I was born a Chip, and have neither soft sympathies nor
soft experiences. Well! I hazard the guess that the true lover's
mind is completely permeated by the beloved object of his
affections. I hazard the guess that her dear name is precious to
him, cannot be heard or repeated without emotion, and is preserved
sacred. If he has any distinguishing appellation of fondness for
her, it is reserved for her, and is not for common ears. A name
that it would be a privilege to call her by, being alone with her
own bright self, it would be a liberty, a coldness, an
insensibility, almost a breach of good faith, to flaunt
elsewhere.'

It was wonderful to see Mr. Grewgious sitting bolt upright, with
his hands on his knees, continuously chopping this discourse out of
himself: much as a charity boy with a very good memory might get
his catechism said: and evincing no correspondent emotion whatever,
unless in a certain occasional little tingling perceptible at the
end of his nose.

'My picture,' Mr. Grewgious proceeded, 'goes on to represent
(under correction from you, Mr. Edwin), the true lover as ever
impatient to be in the presence or vicinity of the beloved object of
his affections; as caring very little for his case in any other
society; and as constantly seeking that. If I was to say seeking
that, as a bird seeks its nest, I should make an ass of myself,
because that would trench upon what I understand to be poetry; and I
am so far from trenching upon poetry at any time, that I never, to
my knowledge, got within ten thousand miles of it. And I am besides
totally unacquainted with the habits of birds, except the birds of
Staple Inn, who seek their nests on ledges, and in gutter- pipes and
chimneypots, not constructed for them by the beneficent hand of
Nature. I beg, therefore, to be understood as foregoing the
bird's-nest. But my picture does represent the true lover as having
no existence separable from that of the beloved object of his
affections, and as living at once a doubled life and a halved life.
And if I do not clearly express what I mean by that, it is either
for the reason that having no conversational powers, I cannot
express what I mean, or that having no meaning, I do not mean what I
fail to express. Which, to the best of my belief, is not the
case.'

Edwin had turned red and turned white, as certain points of this
picture came into the light. He now sat looking at the fire, and
bit his lip.

'The speculations of an Angular man,' resumed Mr. Grewgious,
still sitting and speaking exactly as before, 'are probably
erroneous on so globular a topic. But I figure to myself (subject,
as before, to Mr. Edwin's correction), that there can be no
coolness, no lassitude, no doubt, no indifference, no half fire and
half smoke state of mind, in a real lover. Pray am I at all near
the mark in my picture?'

As abrupt in his conclusion as in his commencement and progress,
he jerked this inquiry at Edwin, and stopped when one might have
supposed him in the middle of his oration.

'I should say, sir,' stammered Edwin, 'as you refer the question
to me - '

'Yes,' said Mr. Grewgious, 'I refer it to you, as an
authority.'

'I should say, then, sir,' Edwin went on, embarrassed, 'that the
picture you have drawn is generally correct; but I submit that
perhaps you may be rather hard upon the unlucky lover.'

'Likely so,' assented Mr. Grewgious, 'likely so. I am a hard
man in the grain.'

'He may not show,' said Edwin, 'all he feels; or he may not -
'

There he stopped so long, to find the rest of his sentence, that
Mr. Grewgious rendered his difficulty a thousand times the greater
by unexpectedly striking in with:

'No to be sure; he may not!'

After that, they all sat silent; the silence of Mr. Bazzard
being occasioned by slumber.

'His responsibility is very great, though,' said Mr. Grewgious
at length, with his eyes on the fire.

Edwin nodded assent, with his eyes on the fire.

'And let him be sure that he trifles with no one,' said Mr.
Grewgious; 'neither with himself, nor with any other.'

Edwin bit his lip again, and still sat looking at the fire.

'He must not make a plaything of a treasure. Woe betide him if
he does! Let him take that well to heart,' said Mr. Grewgious.

Though he said these things in short sentences, much as the
supposititious charity boy just now referred to might have repeated
a verse or two from the Book of Proverbs, there was something dreamy
(for so literal a man) in the way in which he now shook his right
forefinger at the live coals in the grate, and again fell silent.

But not for long. As he sat upright and stiff in his chair, he
suddenly rapped his knees, like the carved image of some queer Joss
or other coming out of its reverie, and said: 'We must finish this
bottle, Mr. Edwin. Let me help you. I'll help Bazzard too, though
he is asleep. He mightn't like it else.'

He helped them both, and helped himself, and drained his glass,
and stood it bottom upward on the table, as though he had just
caught a bluebottle in it.

'And now, Mr. Edwin,' he proceeded, wiping his mouth and hands
upon his handkerchief: 'to a little piece of business. You
received from me, the other day, a certified copy of Miss Rosa's
father's will. You knew its contents before, but you received it
from me as a matter of business. I should have sent it to Mr.
Jasper, but for Miss Rosa's wishing it to come straight to you, in
preference. You received it?'

'Quite safely, sir.'

'You should have acknowledged its receipt,' said Mr. Grewgious;
'business being business all the world over. However, you did
not.'

'I meant to have acknowledged it when I first came in this
evening, sir.'

'Not a business-like acknowledgment,' returned Mr. Grewgious;
'however, let that pass. Now, in that document you have observed a
few words of kindly allusion to its being left to me to discharge a
little trust, confided to me in conversation, at such time as I in
my discretion may think best.'

'Yes, sir.'

'Mr. Edwin, it came into my mind just now, when I was looking at
the fire, that I could, in my discretion, acquit myself of that
trust at no better time than the present. Favour me with your
attention, half a minute.'

He took a bunch of keys from his pocket, singled out by the
candle- light the key he wanted, and then, with a candle in his hand,
went to a bureau or escritoire, unlocked it, touched the spring of a
little secret drawer, and took from it an ordinary ring-case made
for a single ring. With this in his hand, he returned to his chair.
As he held it up for the young man to see, his hand trembled.

'Mr. Edwin, this rose of diamonds and rubies delicately set in
gold, was a ring belonging to Miss Rosa's mother. It was removed
from her dead hand, in my presence, with such distracted grief as I
hope it may never be my lot to contemplate again. Hard man as I am,
I am not hard enough for that. See how bright these stones shine!'
opening the case. 'And yet the eyes that were so much brighter, and
that so often looked upon them with a light and a proud heart, have
been ashes among ashes, and dust among dust, some years! If I had
any imagination (which it is needless to say I have not), I might
imagine that the lasting beauty of these stones was almost
cruel.'

He closed the case again as he spoke.

'This ring was given to the young lady who was drowned so early
in her beautiful and happy career, by her husband, when they first
plighted their faith to one another. It was he who removed it from
her unconscious hand, and it was he who, when his death drew very
near, placed it in mine. The trust in which I received it, was,
that, you and Miss Rosa growing to manhood and womanhood, and your
betrothal prospering and coming to maturity, I should give it to you
to place upon her finger. Failing those desired results, it was to
remain in my possession.'

Some trouble was in the young man's face, and some indecision
was in the action of his hand, as Mr. Grewgious, looking steadfastly
at him, gave him the ring.

'Your placing it on her finger,' said Mr. Grewgious, 'will be
the solemn seal upon your strict fidelity to the living and the
dead. You are going to her, to make the last irrevocable
preparations for your marriage. Take it with you.'

The young man took the little case, and placed it in his
breast.

'If anything should be amiss, if anything should be even
slightly wrong, between you; if you should have any secret
consciousness that you are committing yourself to this step for no
higher reason than because you have long been accustomed to look
forward to it; then,' said Mr. Grewgious, 'I charge you once more,
by the living and by the dead, to bring that ring back to me!'

Here Bazzard awoke himself by his own snoring; and, as is usual
in such cases, sat apoplectically staring at vacancy, as defying
vacancy to accuse him of having been asleep.

'Bazzard!' said Mr. Grewgious, harder than ever.

'I follow you, sir,' said Bazzard, 'and I have been following
you.'

'In discharge of a trust, I have handed Mr. Edwin Drood a ring
of diamonds and rubies. You see?'

Edwin reproduced the little case, and opened it; and Bazzard
looked into it.

'I follow you both, sir,' returned Bazzard, 'and I witness the
transaction.'

Evidently anxious to get away and be alone, Edwin Drood now
resumed his outer clothing, muttering something about time and
appointments. The fog was reported no clearer (by the flying
waiter, who alighted from a speculative flight in the coffee
interest), but he went out into it; and Bazzard, after his manner,
'followed' him.

Mr. Grewgious, left alone, walked softly and slowly to and fro,
for an hour and more. He was restless to-night, and seemed
dispirited.

'I hope I have done right,' he said. 'The appeal to him seemed
necessary. It was hard to lose the ring, and yet it must have gone
from me very soon.'

He closed the empty little drawer with a sigh, and shut and
locked the escritoire, and came back to the solitary fireside.

'Her ring,' he went on. 'Will it come back to me? My mind
hangs about her ring very uneasily to-night. But that is
explainable. I have had it so long, and I have prized it so much!
I wonder - '

He was in a wondering mood as well as a restless; for, though he
checked himself at that point, and took another walk, he resumed
his wondering when he sat down again.

'I wonder (for the ten-thousandth time, and what a weak fool I,
for what can it signify now!) whether he confided the charge of
their orphan child to me, because he knew - Good God, how like her
mother she has become!'

'I wonder whether he ever so much as suspected that some one
doted on her, at a hopeless, speechless distance, when he struck in
and won her. I wonder whether it ever crept into his mind who that
unfortunate some one was!'

'I wonder whether I shall sleep to-night! At all events, I will
shut out the world with the bedclothes, and try.'

Mr. Grewgious crossed the staircase to his raw and foggy
bedroom, and was soon ready for bed. Dimly catching sight of his
face in the misty looking-glass, he held his candle to it for a
moment.

'A likely some one, you, to come into anybody's thoughts in such
an aspect!' he exclaimed. 'There! there! there! Get to bed, poor
man, and cease to jabber!'

With that, he extinguished his light, pulled up the bedclothes
around him, and with another sigh shut out the world. And yet there
are such unexplored romantic nooks in the unlikeliest men, that even
old tinderous and touchwoody P. J. T. Possibly Jabbered Thus, at
some odd times, in or about seventeen-forty-seven.