had faded out of him with the breath of the spoken words, when Eugene came back, ushering in a most disgraceful shadow of a man, shaking from head to foot, and clothed in shabby grease and smear.
“This interesting gentleman,” said Eugene, “is the son—the occasionally rather trying son, for he has his failings—of a lady of my acquaintance. My dear Mortimer— Mr. Dolls.” Eugene had no idea what his name was, knowing the little dressmaker’s to be assumed, but presented him with easy confidence under the first appellation that his associations suggested.
“I gather, my dear Mortimer,” pursued Eugene, as Lightwood stared at the obscene visitor, “from the manner of Mr. Dolls—which is occasionally complicated—that he desires to make some communication to me. I have mentioned to Mr. Dolls that you and I are on terms of confidence, and have requested Mr. Dolls to develop his views here.”
The wretched object being much embarrassed by holding what remained of his hat, Eugene airily tossed it to the door, and put him down in a chair.
“It will be necessary, I think,” he observed, “to wind up Mr. Dolls, before anything to any mortal purpose can be got out of him. Brandy, Mr. Dolls, or—?”
“Threepenn’orth rum,” said Mr. Dolls.
A judiciously small quantity of the spirit was given him in a wineglass, and he began to convey it to his mouth, with all kinds of falterings and gyrations on the road.
“The nerves of Mr. Dolls,” remarked Eugene to Lightwood, “are considerably unstrung. And I deem it on the whole expedient to fumigate Mr. Dolls.”