Tom," he says, "what a mystery hangs over you!"

"Yes, Mr. Click"--the rest of the house generally give him his name, as
being first, front, carpeted all over, his own furniture, and if not
mahogany, an out-and-out imitation--"yes, Mr. Click, a mystery does hang
over me."

"Makes you low, you see, don't it?" says he, eyeing me sideways.

"Why, yes, Mr. Click, there are circumstances connected with it that
have," I yielded to a sigh, "a lowering effect."

"Gives you a touch of the misanthrope too, don't it?" says he. "Well,
I'll tell you what. If I was you, I'd shake it of."

"If I was you, I would, Mr. Click; but, if you was me, you wouldn't."

"Ah!" says he, "there's something in that."

When we had walked a little further, he took it up again by touching me
on the chest.

"You see, Tom, it seems to me as if, in the words of the poet who wrote
the domestic drama of The Stranger, you had a silent sorrow there."

"I have, Mr. Click."

"I hope, Tom," lowering his voice in a friendly way, "it isn't coining,
or smashing?"

"No, Mr. Click. Don't be uneasy."

"Nor yet forg--" Mr. Click checked himself, and added, "counterfeiting
anything, for instance?"

"No, Mr. Click. I am lawfully in the Art line--Fine-Art line--but I can
say no more."

"Ah! Under a species of star? A kind of malignant spell? A sort of a
gloomy destiny? A cankerworm pegging away at your vitals in secret, as
well as I make it out?" said Mr. Click, eyeing me with some admiration.

I told Mr. Click that was about it, if we came to particulars; and I
thought he appeared rather proud of me.

Our conversation had brought us to a crowd of people, the greater part
struggling for a front place from which to see something on the pavement,
which proved to be various designs executed in coloured chalks on the
pavement stones, lighted by two candles stuck in mud sconces. The
subjects consisted of a fine fresh salmon's head and shoulders, supposed
to have been recently sent home from the fishmonger's; a moonlight night
at sea (in a circle); dead game; scroll-work; the head of a hoary hermit
engaged in devout contemplation; the head of a pointer smoking a pipe;
and a cherubim, his flesh creased as in infancy, going on a horizontal
errand against the wind. All these subjects appeared to me to be
exquisitely done.

On his knees on one side of this gallery, a shabby person of modest
appearance who shivered dreadfully (though it wasn't at all