"I just told you so," said the old man, not unnaturally starting back. "And if you were going to ask me such an unnecessary question at all," he added, testily, "you needn't have roared it out at me. I could have heard that without my trumpet. Yes, I've lived here forty years, and so has black Maria, who opened the door for you; and I say again that I have accomplished what I have by uninterrupted study. I haven't gone about, bowing to every he, she, and it. I never knew who lived in any of the other houses in the court till to-day, when a woman came and asked me to go out for the evening to her house; and just because it was Christmas-eve, I was foolish enough to be wheedled by her into saying I would go. Miss —— Miss ——, I can't remember her name now. I shall have to ask Maria. There, you haven't got much satisfaction out of me; but do you mind what I said to you, and it will be worth more than if I had told you what books to read. Eh?" And he invited Nicholas once more to drop his words into the trumpet.
"Good afternoon," said Nicholas, hesitatingly,—"thank you,"—at a loss what pertinent reply to make, and in despair of clearing himself from the tangle in which he had become involved. It was plain, too, that he should get no satisfaction here, at least upon the search in which he was engaged. But the reply seemed quite satisfactory to the old gentleman, who cheerfully relinquished him to black Maria, who, in turn, passed him out of the house.
Left to himself, and rid of his personal embarrassment, he began to feel uncomfortably guilty, as he considered the confusion which he had entailed upon the real philological disciple, and would fain comfort himself with the hope that he had acted as a sort of lightning-rod to conduct the old scholar's bolts, and so had secured some immunity for the one at whom the bolts were really shot. But his own situation demanded his attention; and leaving the to-be unhappy young man and the to-be perplexed old gentleman to settle the difficulty over the mediating ear-trumpet, he addressed himself again to his task, and proposed to take another survey of the court, with the vague hope that his aunt might show herself with such unmistakable signs of relationship as to bring his researches to an immediate and triumphant close.
Just as he was turning away from the front of Number One, buttoning his overcoat with an air of self-abstraction, he was suddenly and unaccountably attacked in the chest with such violence as almost to throw him off his feet. At the next moment his ears were assailed by a profusion of apologetic explanations from a young man, who made out to tell him, that, coming out of his house with the intention of calling next door, he had leaped over the snow that lay between, and, not seeing the gentleman, had, most unintentionally, plunged headlong into him. He hoped he had not hurt him; he begged a thousand pardons; it was very careless in him; and then, perfect peace having succeeded this violent attack, the new-comer politely asked,—
"Can you tell me whether Doctor Chocker is at home, and disengaged? I perceive that you have just left his house."
"Do you mean the deaf old gentleman in Number One?" asked Nicholas.
"I was not aware that he was deaf," said his companion.
"And I did not know that his name was Doctor Chocker," said Nicholas, smiling. "But may I ask," said he, with a sudden thought, and blushing so hard that even the wintry red of his cheeks was outshone, "if you were just going to see him?"
"I had an appointment to see him at this hour; and that is the reason why I asked you if he was disengaged."
"He—he is not engaged, I believe," said Nicholas, stammering and blushing harder than ever; "but a word with you, Sir. I must—really—it was wholly unintentional—but unless I am mistaken, the old gentleman thought I was you."