With distracting coolness and slowness—for he knows the curiosity of the Charmer to be always devouring—Eugene makes a pretence of getting out an eyeglass, polishing it, and reading the paper with difficulty, long after he has seen what is written on it. What is written on it in wet ink, is:
“Young Blight.”
“Waiting?” says Eugene over his shoulder, in confidence, with the Analytical.
“Waiting,” returns the Analytical in responsive confidence.
Eugene looks “Excuse me,” towards Mrs. Veneering, goes out, and finds Young Blight, Mortimer’s clerk, at the hall-door.
“You told me to bring him, sir, to wherever you was, if he come while you was out and I was in,” says that discreet young gentleman, standing on tiptoe to whisper; “and I’ve brought him.”
“Sharp boy. Where is he?” asks Eugene.
“He’s in a cab, sir, at the door. I thought it best not to show him, you see, if it could be helped; for he’s a-shaking all over, like,”—Blight’s simile is perhaps inspired by the surrounding dishes of sweets—“like glue monge.”
“Sharp boy again,” returns Eugene. “I’ll go to him.”
Goes out straightway, and, leisurely leaning his arms on the open window of a cab in waiting, looks in at Mr. Dolls: who has brought his own atmosphere with him, and would seem from its odour to have brought it, for convenience of carriage, in a rum-cask.
“Now Dolls, wake up!”