nd our marshes were any distance off. That I could
have been at our old church in my old church-going clothes, on the very
last Sunday that ever was, seemed a combination of impossibilities,
geographical and social, solar and lunar. Yet in the London streets so
crowded with people and so brilliantly lighted in the dusk of evening,
there were depressing hints of reproaches for that I had put the poor
old kitchen at home so far away; and in the dead of night, the footsteps
of some incapable impostor of a porter mooning about Barnard's Inn,
under pretence of watching it, fell hollow on my heart.

On the Monday morning at a quarter before nine, Herbert went to
the counting-house to report himself,--to look about him, too, I
suppose,--and I bore him company. He was to come away in an hour or
two to attend me to Hammersmith, and I was to wait about for him. It
appeared to me that the eggs from which young Insurers were hatched were
incubated in dust and heat, like the eggs of ostriches, judging from the
places to which those incipient giants repaired on a Monday morning. Nor
did the counting-house where Herbert assisted, show in my eyes as at
all a good Observatory; being a back second floor up a yard, of a grimy
presence in all particulars, and with a look into another back second
floor, rather than a look out.

I waited about until it was noon, and I went upon 'Change, and I saw
fluey men sitting there under the bills about shipping, whom I took to
be great merchants, though I couldn't understand why they should all be
out of spirits. When Herbert came, we went and had lunch at a celebrated
house which I then quite venerated, but now believe to have been the
most abject superstition in Europe, and where I could not help noticing,
even then, that there was much more gravy on the tablecloths and knives
and waiters' clothes, than in the steaks. This collation disposed of at
a moderate price (considering the grease, which was not charged for), we
went back to Barnard's Inn and got my little portmanteau, and then took
coach for Hammersmith. We arrived there at two or three o'clock in
the afternoon, and had very little way to walk to Mr. Pocket's house.
Lifting the latch of a gate, we passed direct into a little garden
overlooking the river, where Mr. Pocket's children were playing
about. And unless I deceive myself on a point where my interests or
prepossessions are certainly not concerned, I saw that Mr. and Mrs.
Pocket's chil