"Here's five shillings; will that be enough?"
"Ample."
"Now go, like a good fellow, and do come back here straight."
"As an arrow."
"Don't say anything about my letter."
"Not a word, not a word."
Mr Verneede departed, and the painter went on with his painting, feeling very much as Noah must have felt when the dove flew out of the Ark.
Mr Verneede first made straight for his lodgings. He inhabited a top-floor back in Maple Street, a little street leading out of the King's Road.
Here he blacked his boots, put bear's grease on his hair, and assumed a frock-coat a shade more respectable than the one he usually wore. Then, with his coat tightly buttoned, his best hat on his head, and his umbrella under his arm, he made off on his errand revolving in his wonderful mind the forthcoming interview. To assist thought, he turned into the four-ale bar of the "Spotted Dog." Here stood a woman with a baby in her arms, a regular customer, who was explaining domestic troubles to the sympathetic barmaid. Seeing Verneede seated with his ale before him, she included him in her audience. Half an hour later the old gentleman, having given much advice on the rearing of babies and management of husbands, emerged from the "Spotted Dog" slightly flushed and entirely happy.