Then I shall jump out o' bed, and look at myself in the glass.
"You howling little cad," I shall say to myself, "I have half a mind to strangle you"; and I shall shave myself, and put on a quiet blue serge suit and a bowler 'at, tell my landlady to keep my rooms for me till I comes back, slip out o' the 'ouse, and into the fust 'ansom I meets, and back to the Halbany.
And a month arter that, I shall come into my chambers at the Halbany, fling Voltaire and Parini into the fire, shy me 'at at the bust of good old 'Omer, slip on my blue suit agen, and back to the Mile End Road.'
"'How do you explain your absence to both parties?' I asked.
"'Oh, that's simple enough,' he replied.
'I just tells my 'ousekeeper at the Halbany as I'm goin' on the Continong; and my mates 'ere thinks I'm a traveller.'
"'Nobody misses me much,' he added, pathetically;
'I hain't a partic'larly fetchin' sort o' bloke, either of me.
I'm sich an out-and- outer.
When I'm an 'Arry, I'm too much of an 'Arry, and when I'm a prig, I'm a reg'lar fust prize prig.
Seems to me as if I was two ends of a man without any middle.
If I could only mix myself up a bit more, I'd be all right.'
"He sniffed once or twice, and then he laughed.
'Ah, well,' he said, casting aside his momentary gloom; 'it's all a game, and wot's the odds so long as yer 'appy.
'Ave a wet?'
"I declined the wet, and left him playing sentimental airs to himself upon the concertina.
"One afternoon, about a month later, the servant came to me with a card on which was engraved the name of
'Mr. Joseph Smythe.'
I requested her to show him up.
He entered with his usual air of languid superciliousness, and seated himself in a graceful attitude upon the sofa.
"'Well,' I said, as soon as the girl had closed the door behind her, 'so you've got rid of Smith?'
"A sickly smile passed over his face.
'You have not mentioned it to any one?' he asked anxiously.
"'Not to a soul,' I replied; 'though I confess I often feel tempted to.'
"'I sincerely trust you never will,' he said, in a tone of alarm.
'You can have no conception of the misery the whole thing causes me.
I cannot understand it. What possible affinity there can be between myself and that disgusting little snob passes my comprehension.
I assure you, my dear Mac, the knowledge that I was a ghoul, or a vampire, would cause me less nausea than the reflection that I am one and the same with that odious little Whitechapel bounder.
When I think of him every nerve in my body--'
"'Don't think about him any more,' I interrupted, perceiving his strongly- suppressed emotion.
'You didn't come here to talk about him, I'm sure. Let us dismiss him.'
"'Well,' he replied, 'in a certain roundabout way it is slightly connected with him.
That is really my excuse for inflicting the subject upon you. You are the only man I _can_ speak to about it--if I shall not bore you?'
"'Not in the least,' I said. 'I am most interested.'
As he still hesitated, I asked him point-blank what it was.
"He appeared embarrassed.
'It is really very absurd of me,' he said, while the faintest suspicion of pink crossed his usually colourless face; 'but I feel I must talk to somebody about it. The fact is, my dear Mac, I am in love.'
"'Capital!' I cried; 'I'm delighted to hear it.' (I thought it might make a man of him.) 'Do I know the lady?'
"'I am inclined to think you must have seen her,' he replied; 'she was with me on the pier at Yarmouth that evening you met me.'
"'Not 'Liza!' I exclaimed.
"'That was she,' he answered; 'Miss Elizabeth Muggins.'
He dwelt lovingly upon the name.
"'But,' I said, 'you seemed--I really could not help noticing, it was so pronounced--you seemed to positively dislike her.
Indeed, I gathered from your remark to a friend that her society was distinctly distasteful to you.'
"'To Smith,' he corrected me.
'What judge would that howling little blackguard be of a woman's worth!
The dislike of such a man as that is a testimonial to her merit!'
"'I may be mistaken,' I said; 'but she struck me as a bit common.'
"'She is not, perhaps, what the world would call a lady,' he admitted; 'but then, my dear Mac, my opinion of the world is not such as to render _its_ opinion of much value to me.
I and the world differ on most subjects, I am glad to say.