Lincoln’s Inn.”
“If you please, sir,” said I.
He was very obliging, and as he handed me into a fly after superintending the removal of my boxes, I asked him whether there was a great fire anywhere? For the streets were so full of dense brown smoke that scarcely anything was to be seen.
“Oh, dear no, miss,” he said. “This is a London particular.”
I had never heard of such a thing.
“A fog, miss,” said the young gentleman.
“Oh, indeed!” said I.
We drove slowly through the dirtiest and darkest streets that ever were seen in the world (I thought) and in such a distracting state of confusion that I wondered how the people kept their senses, until we passed into sudden quietude under an old gateway and drove on through a silent square until we came to an odd nook in a corner, where there was an entrance up a steep, broad flight of stairs, like an entrance to a church. And there really was a churchyard outside under some cloisters, for I saw the gravestones from the staircase window.
This was Kenge and Carboy’s. The young gentleman showed me through an outer office into Mr. Kenge’s room—there was no one in it—and politely put an armchair for me by the fire. He then called my attention to a little looking-glass hanging from a nail on one side of the chimneypiece.
“In case you should wish to look at yourself, miss, after the journey, as you’re going before the Chancellor. Not that it’s requisite, I am sure,” said the young gentleman civilly.