If the day were half as tremendous to any other professional gentleman in Doctors’ Commons as it was to me, I sincerely believe he made some expiation for his share in that rotten old ecclesiastical cheese. Although I left the office at half past three, and was prowling about the place of appointment within a few minutes afterwards, the appointed time was exceeded by a full quarter of an hour, according to the clock of St. Andrew’s, Holborn, before I could muster up sufficient desperation to pull the private bell-handle let into the left-hand doorpost of Mr. Waterbrook’s house.

The professional business of Mr. Waterbrook’s establishment was done on the ground floor, and the genteel business (of which there was a good deal) in the upper part of the building. I was shown into a pretty but rather close drawing room, and there sat Agnes, netting a purse.