(1828.] a Romance of High Holborn. 51 
«© Very good ; nothing can be more reasonable ; wait the appointed 
time, and you shall have all.” 
This answer served, in some degree, to appease him: no, not exactly 
to appease him, because that would imply previous excitement, and he 
was invariably imperturbable in manner; it satisfied him, however, 
for the present, and he forthwith walked away, casting on me that 
equivocal sort of look with which Ajax turned from Ulysses, or Dido from 
/Eneas, in the Shades. When a man, says some sage, is laden with 
severe afflictions, he has at least the satisfaction of reflecting that inferior 
ones are all forgotten: so that, viewed in this light, one first-rate - 
grievance may be looked on as the luckiest thing in the world ; for not 
only does it annihilate a score of petty annoyances, but, by affording the 
mind a dignified pretence for grumbling, vastly elevates it in its own 
esteem, and improves its powers of endurance. With regard to myself, 
I am what Terence would call a Heautontimoreumenos; 7. e. a self-tor- 
mentor. When nothing of moment oppresses me, I ingeniously find 
food for vexation in trifles, and could no more exist without a grievance 
than others without hope. It will, therefore, be conceded that my tailor, 
in the absence of some graver misery, now began to grow upon my 
affections as an annoyance. My debt, indeed, with him was a positive 
affliction—one that could only be settled by as positive a remedy ; but 
this, from one cause or another, I was at present unable to perform. 
A lapse of a few weeks ensued, during which I heard nothing farther 
from my persecutor ; when, one dark November evening—one of those 
peculiarly English evenings, full of fog and gloom, when the half-frozen 
sleet, joined in its descent by gutters from the house-tops, comes 
driving full in your face, blinding you to all external objects—on 
one of these blessed evenings, on my road to Camden Town, I chanced 
to miss my way, and was compelled, notwithstanding a certain shyness 
towards strangers, to ask my direction of the first respectable person I 
should meet. Many passed me by, but none sufficiently prepossessing ; 
when, on turning down some nameless street that leads to Tottenham 
Court Road, I chanced to come behind a staid-looking gentleman, 
accoutred in a dark brown coat, with an umbrella—the cotton of which 
had shrunk half-way up the whalebone—held obliquely over his head. 
Hastily stepping up to him,—*“ Pray, Sir,” said I, “ could you be kind 
enough to direct me to Place, Camden Town ?” 
The unknown thus addressed made the slightest possible inclination 
towards me ; and then, in an under tone,—“ I believe, Sir, your name 
is D Qs 
_ Ipaused: a vague sort of recollection came over me. Could it be ?>— 
no, surely not! And yet the voice—the manner—the—the 
_ My suspicions were soon converted into certainty, when the stranger, 
with his own peculiar expression, quietly broke forth a second time 
with—* Touching that little account——” 
This was enough: it was more than enough—it was vexatiously super 
fluous. To be dunned for a debt, at the very time when the nerves 
could best dispense with the application ; to be recalled back to the vul- 
garities of existence, at that precise moment when the imagination was 
most abstracted from all commercial common-places ; to be stopped by 
a tailor (and such a tailor !), when the mind was dreaming of a mistress 
the bare idea was intolerable! So I thought ; and, without farther 
explanation, hurried precipitately e¥ the spot, nor ever once paused 
H 
