"Thought you were I?" said the other, screwing his eyebrows into a question, and letting his nose stand for an exclamation-point. "But come, it is cold here,—will you do me the honor to come up to my room? At any rate, I should like to hear something about the old fellow." And he turned towards the next house.
"What—!" said Nicholas, "do you live in Number Two?"
"Yes, I have rooms here," said his companion, jumping back over the snow. "You seem surprised."
"It is extraordinary," muttered Nicholas to himself, as he entered the house and followed his new acquaintance up stairs.
Their entrance seemed to create some confusion; for there was an indistinct sound as of a tumultuous retreat in every direction, a scuttling up and down stairs, and a whisking of dresses round corners, with still more indistinct and distant sound of suppressed chattering and a voice berating.
"It is extremely provoking," said the young man, when they had entered his room and the door was shut; "but the people in this house seem to do nothing but watch my movements. You heard that banging about? Well, I seldom come in or go out, especially with a friend, but that just such a stampede takes place in the passage-ways and staircase. I have no idea who lives in the house, except a Mrs. Crimp, a very worthy woman, no doubt, but with too many children, I should guess. I only lodge here; and as I send my money down every month with the bill which I find on my table, I never see Mrs. Crimp. Now I don't see why they should be so curious about me. I'm sure I am very contented in my ignorance of the whole household. It's a little annoying, though, when I bring any one into the house. Will you excuse me a moment, while I ring for more coal?"
While he disappeared for this purpose, seeming to keep the bell in some other part of the house, Nicholas took a hasty glance round the room, and, opening a book on the table, read on the fly-leaf, Paul Le Clear, a name which he tagged for convenience to the occupant of the room until he should find one more authentic. The room corresponded to that in which he had met Doctor Chocker, but the cheerful gleam of an open fire gave a brighter aspect to the interior. Here also were books; but while at the Doctor's the walls, tables, and even floor seemed bursting with the crowd that had found lodging there, so that he had made his way to a chair by a sort of footpath through a field of folios, here there was the nicest order and an evident attempt at artistic arrangement. Nor were books alone the possessors of the walls; for a few pictures and busts had places, and two or three ingenious cupboards excited curiosity. The room, in short, showed plainly the presence of a cultivated mind; and Nicholas, who, though unfamiliar with city-life, had received a capital intellectual training at the hands of a scholarly, but anchoret father, was delighted at the signs of culture in his new acquaintance.
Mr. Le Clear reëntered the room, followed presently by the coal-scuttle in the hands of a small servant, and, remembering the occasion which had brought them together, invited Nicholas to finish the explanation which he had begun below. He, set at ease by the agreeable surroundings, opened his heart wide, and, for the sake of explicitness in his narration, proposed to begin back at the very beginning.
"By all means begin at the beginning," said Mr. Le Clear, rubbing his hands in expectant pleasure; "but before you begin, my good Sir, let me suggest that we take a cup of tea together. I must take mine early to-night, as I am to spend the evening out, and there's something to tell you, Sir, when you are through,"—as if meeting his burst of confidence with a corresponding one,—"though it's a small matter, probably, compared with yours, but it has amused me. I can't make a great show on the table," he added, with an elegant humility, when Nicholas accepted his invitation; "but I like to take my tea in my room, though I go out for dinner."
So saying, he brought from the cupboard a little table-cloth, and, bustling about, deposited on a tea-tray, one by one, various members of a tea-set, which had evidently been plucked from a tea-plant in China, since the forms and figures were all suggested by the flowery kingdom. The lids of the vessels were shaped like tea-leaves; and miniature China men and women picked their way about among the letters of the Chinese alphabet, as if they were playing at word-puzzles. Nicholas admired the service to its owner's content, establishing thus a new bond of sympathy between them; and both were soon seated near the table, sipping the tea with demure little spoons, that approached the meagreness of Chinese chop-sticks, and decorating white bread with brown marmalade.