At seven o'clock he shut his book gently, replaced it carefully on its shelf, very deftly and quickly prepared his breakfast, and, having eaten it, put on his hat and a black coat and went out again.
Now, for the first time, he thought over his night's adventures, for during the time he had spent in his room he had not allowed himself to think of them. He had the capacity of dismissing utterly from his mind anything about which he did not want to think. It was time enough to think when he could act, and he had known that he could not act till the morning. Now, two minutes' thought decided the course his action should take.
By half-past eight o'clock he had knocked at the door of 15 Spray's Buildings, and had been directed to the room of Mrs Fludger. That lady was surrounded by the family linen—some just as it had been discarded by the family, some in the wash-tub, and some hanging on lines slung across the room at a convenient height for dabbing itself wetly in the faces of possible visitors. The room appeared to be furnished chastely and simply with the tub and lines before mentioned, and nothing else whatever; for the remainder of the furniture had been heaped in one corner, in order that the washing might not be impeded, and was not noticeable at the first glance. Mrs Fludger had her arms bared for toil. She wore a dress with no appreciable waist and no distinctive colour. A woollen shawl wound her figure in its embrace, a black bonnet of no particular shape, and of antique appearance, was on the extreme back of her head, where it was supported, by no visible agency, in defiance of the laws of gravitation.
'Now then, my good man,' she began, in answer to Petrovitch's tap at the open door, 'we don't want no Scripture reading here. Thank the Lord, I knows my Bible duty, and does it, which wasn't I up this very morning afore five, which is more than you can say, I'll go bail. There's some needs talking to. Why don't you go after my master an' teach him the ten commanders if you wants to Bible read?'
'But I don't want to Bible read,' said Petrovitch, as she ended with a snap of her teeth, and recommenced the action of 'soaping in,' which her vigorous speech had suspended. 'I only wish to ask you of a Mrs Litvinoff?'
'Don't know the name.'
'Perhaps I mistake the name; I ask of the young woman who left here yesterday morning.'
'Oh, her!' with contemptuous emphasis; 'bless you, her name ain't nothing like that; no more nor yours nor mine. Her name's Hatfield; and she ain't a missus neither, without she was married yesterday.'
'I hope she did no wrong here, that you are not angry with her,' said he, as though feeling Mrs Fludger's displeasure to be the severest punishment of misdoing.
'No,' said Mrs Fludger, a little softened, 'I'm not angry with her; but will you jest be good enough to say what you want and have done with it, as my washing's all behind as it is?'