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