LATER IN THE DAY.
It happened that Clerk Gum had business on hand the day of the inquest, which obliged him to go to Garchester. He reached home after dark; and the first thing he saw was his wife, in what he was pleased to call a state of semi-idiocy. The tea-things were laid on the table, and substantial refreshment in the shape of cold meat, and a plate of muffins ready for toasting, all for the clerk's regalement. But Mrs. Gum herself sat on a low chair by the fire, her eyes swollen with crying.
"What's the matter now?" was the clerk's first question.
"Oh, Gum, I told you you ought not to have gone off to-day. You might have stayed for the inquest."
"Much good I should do the inquest, or the inquest do me," retorted the clerk. "Has Becky gone?"
"Long ago. Gum, that dream's coming round. I said it would. I told you there was ill in store for Lord Hartledon; and that Pike was mixed up in it, and Mr. Elster also in some way. If you'd only listen to me—"
The clerk, who had been brushing his hat and shaking the dust from his outer coat—for he was a careful man with his clothes, and always well-dressed—brought down his hand upon the table with some temper.
"Just stop that. I've heard enough of that dream, and of all your dreams. Confounded folly! Haven't I trouble and worry enough upon my mind, without your worrying me every time I come in about your idiotic dreams?"
"Well," returned Mrs. Gum, "if the dream's nothing, I'd like to ask why they had Pike up to-day before them all?"
"Who had him up?" asked the clerk, after a pause. "Had him up where?"