“Precious warm walking, isn’t it?” said Lowten, drawing a Bramah key from his pocket, with a small plug therein, to keep the dust out.
“You appear to feel it so,” rejoined Mr. Pickwick, smiling at the clerk, who was literally red-hot.
“I’ve come along rather, I can tell you,” replied Lowten. “It went the half-hour as I came through the Polygon. I’m here before him, though, so I don’t mind.”
Comforting himself with this reflection, Mr. Lowten extracted the plug from the door-key, and having opened the door, re-plugged and re-pocketed his Bramah, and picked up the letters which the postman had dropped through the box. He then ushered Mr. Pickwick into the office. Here, in the twinkling of an eye, he divested himself of his coat, put on a threadbare garment which he took out of a desk, hung up his hat, pulled forth a few sheets of cartridge and blotting paper in alternate layers, and sticking a pen behind his ear, rubbed his hands with an air of great satisfaction.
“There you see, Mr. Pickwick,” he said, “now I’m complete. I’ve got my office coat on, and my pad out, and let him come as soon as he likes. You haven’t got a pinch of snuff about you, have you?”
“No, I have not,” replied Mr. Pickwick.
“I’m sorry for it,” said Lowten. “Never mind. I’ll run out presently, and get a bottle of soda. Don’t I look rather queer about the eyes, Mr. Pickwick?”
The individual appealed to, surveyed Mr. Lowten’s eyes from a distance, and expressed his opinion that no unusual queerness was perceptible in those features.
“I’m glad of it,” said Lowten. “We were keeping it up pretty tolerably at the Stump last night, and I’m rather out of sorts this morning. Perker’s been about that business of yours, by-the-bye.”
“What business?” inquired Mr. Pickwick. “Mrs. Bardell’s costs?”