“It’s this fog,” returned Edwin; “and it makes my eyes smart, like Cayenne pepper.”
“Is it really so bad as that? Pray undo your wrappers. It’s fortunate I have so good a fire; but Mr. Bazzard has taken care of me.”
“No I haven’t,” said Mr. Bazzard at the door.
“Ah! then it follows that I must have taken care of myself without observing it,” said Mr. Grewgious. “Pray be seated in my chair. No. I beg! Coming out of such an atmosphere, in my chair.”
Edwin took the easy-chair in the corner; and the fog he had brought in with him, and the fog he took off with his greatcoat and neck-shawl, was speedily licked up by the eager fire.
“I look,” said Edwin, smiling, “as if I had come to stop.”
“—By the by,” cried Mr. Grewgious; “excuse my interrupting you; do stop. The fog may clear in an hour or two. We can have dinner in from just across Holborn. You had better take your Cayenne pepper here than outside; pray stop and dine.”
“You are very kind,” said Edwin, glancing about him as though attracted by the notion of a new and relishing sort of gipsy-party.
“Not at all,” said Mr. Grewgious; “you are very kind to join issue with a bachelor in chambers, and take pot-luck. And I’ll ask,” said Mr. Grewgious, dropping his voice, and speaking with a twinkling eye, as if inspired with a bright thought: “I’ll ask Bazzard. He mightn’t like it else.—Bazzard!”
Bazzard reappeared.