At 3.0 punctually he was in Paradise Row. Perhaps it was not unnatural that even then his advent should create emotion. As he turned down from the main road the very potboy from "The Duchess" rushed up to him, and congratulated him on his escape. "I have had nothing to escape," said Lord Hampstead trying to pass on. But Mrs. Grimley saw him, and came out to him. "Oh, my lord, we are so thankful;—indeed, we are."
"You are very good, ma'am," said the lord.
"And now, Lord 'Ampstead, mind and be true to that dear young lady who was well-nigh heart-broke when she heard as it were you who was smashed up."
He was hurrying on finding it impossible to make any reply to this, when Miss Demijohn, seeing that Mrs. Grimley had been bold enough to address the noble visitor to their humble street, remembering how much she had personally done in the matter, having her mind full of the important fact that she had been the first to give information on the subject to the Row generally, thinking that no such appropriate occasion as this would ever again occur for making personal acquaintance with the lord, rushed out from her own house, and seized the young man's hand before he was able to defend himself. "My lord," she said, "my lord, we were all so depressed when we heard of it."
"Were you, indeed?"
"All the Row was depressed, my lord. But I was the first who knew it. It was I who communicated the sad tidings to Miss Fay. It was, indeed, my lord. I saw it in the Evening Tell-Tale, and went across with the paper at once."
"That was very good of you."
"Thank'ee, my lord. And, therefore, seeing you and knowing you,—for we all know you now in Paradise Row—"
"Do you now?"
"Every one of us, my lord. Therefore I thought I'd just make bold to come out and introduce myself. Here's Mrs. Duffer. I hope you'll let me introduce you to Mrs. Duffer of No. 15. Mrs. Duffer, Lord Hampstead. And oh, my lord, it will be such an honour to the Row if anything of that kind should happen."