‘Everything, except the clothes I wear and some papers that I managed to save. All my books burnt!’
Biffen shook his head dolorously.
‘Your account-books!’ cried the dealer in oil. ‘Dear, dear!—and what might your business be?’
The author corrected this misapprehension. In the end he was invited to break his fast, which he did right willingly. Then, with assurances that he would return before nightfall, he left the house. His steps were naturally first directed to Clipstone Street; the familiar abode was a gruesome ruin, still smoking. Neighbours informed him that Mr Briggs’s body had been brought forth in a horrible condition; but this was the only loss of life that had happened.
Thence he struck eastward, and at eleven came to Manville Street, Islington. He found Reardon by the fireside, looking very ill, and speaking with hoarseness.
‘Another cold?’
‘It looks like it. I wish you would take the trouble to go and buy me some vermin-killer. That would suit my case.’
‘Then what would suit mine? Behold me, undeniably a philosopher; in the literal sense of the words omnia mea mecum porto.’
He recounted his adventures, and with such humorous vivacity that when he ceased the two laughed together as if nothing more amusing had ever been heard.
‘Ah, but my books, my books!’ exclaimed Biffen, with a genuine groan. ‘And all my notes! At one fell swoop! If I didn’t laugh, old friend, I should sit down and cry; indeed I should. All my classics, with years of scribbling in the margins! How am I to buy them again?’