The front door always stood open during the day-time, because there was an inner door of great strength which led into the hall; and a porter in handsome livery was constantly lounging about at the entrance.
The Doctor himself was an elderly person, of highly respectable appearance, and of very pleasing manners when he chose to be agreeable: but no demon could exhibit greater ferocity than he, when compelled to exercise his authority in respect to those amongst his patients who had no friends to care about them.
It was between nine and ten o’clock in the evening of the day following the interview between Fitzgeorge and Heathcote’s head clerk, that a plain carriage and pair drove up to the door of Doctor Swinton’s establishment.
The porter immediately rushed forward to open the door and let down the steps of the vehicle; and two persons alighted.
One was a tall, handsome young man of genteel bearing, and handsomely dressed: the other was some years older, and might be described as respectable without having anything aristocratic in his appearance.
“Have the kindness to say that Mr. Smithson, accompanied by his friend Mr. Granby, requests an interview with your master,” were the words immediately addressed to the porter by the elder of the two visitors, while the other appeared to be gazing about him in a vacant and stolid manner.
“Walk in, gentlemen,” said the obsequious porter, with a low bow: he then rang a bell, and a footman in resplendent livery opened the inner door.
Mr. Granby and Mr. Smithson were now conducted through a spacious hall into an elegantly furnished parlour, lighted by a superb lustre suspended to the ceiling.
“The Doctor will be with you in a minute, gentlemen,” said the domestic, who immediately retired to acquaint his master with their arrival: but the moment the door had closed behind him, a smile of deep meaning instantly appeared upon the lips of the visitors, as they exchanged equally significant looks.
In a few minutes Dr. Swinton appeared—his countenance wearing such a benignant expression that if the Saints at Exeter Hall could only have bribed him to attend on the platform at their May Meetings, they would have secured a sufficiency of outward appearance of philanthropy to draw gold from the purses of even the most cynical. In fact, the doctor was precisely the individual from whose lips might be expected a most touching and lachrymose speech upon the “benighted condition” of the heathen, and the absolute necessity of procuring funds for the purpose of circulating a million of Bibles amongst the poor savages of the Cannibal Islands.