The next day, Ellice had got an address written down, and said to Holcombe:
“If you care to go with me, we will go and look after this lace-merchant this morning.”
Holcombe's heart gave a great throb as he asked carelessly to see the address: “Jacob Zimmermann, 25 Juden-Strasse.”
“I don't know much about laces,” he answered, “but I will go with pleasure.”
“It feels like going on an adventure, like something you read of in a book,” said Ellice, “this penetrating into the privacy of those tumble-down dens of the Juden-Strasse.”
“Well,” returned Holcombe quietly, “it does give one the idea.”
They rang at the door No. 25, and the merry, mischievous face he had seen once at the window greeted Henry as he entered. They inquired for Herr Zimmermann.
“Oh!” said the girl, laughing and looking astonished, “he is up on the third floor. Shall I show you the way? But he is ill, and, as he lives all alone, he has got into very queer ways.”
They went up, guided by the laughing girl, who rattled on as she preceded them.
“Gentlemen like you most often inquire for us, for my father, I mean, and no one ever comes to see old Zimmermann except some wrinkled old ladies, and heaven knows how they find him out; and as to Herr Löwenberg, he is a stranger and has no friends.”