ntem scelestum
deseruit pede Poena claudo._

I paused by the window. In this there was no indiscretion; for a cold
drizzle washed the panes, and the warmth of the apartment dimmed their
inner surface.

"_Pede Poena claudo_," my finger traced the words on the damp glass.

A sudden clamour of the street-door bell sent me skipping back to the
fire-place with my heart in my mouth. Interminable minutes followed, and
at length Mrs. McRankine entered with my ball suit from the tailor's. I
carried it into the next room, and disposed it on the bed--olive-green
coat with gilt buttons and facings of watered silk, olive-green
pantaloons, white waistcoat sprigged with blue and green forget-me-nots.
The survey carried me on to midday and the midday meal.

The ministry of meal-time is twice blest: for prisoners and men without
appetite it punctuates and makes time of eternity. I dawdled over my
chop and pint of brown stout until Mrs. McRankine, after twice entering
to clear away, with the face of a Cumaean sibyl, so far relaxed the
tension of unnatural calm as to inquire if I meant to be all night about
it.

The afternoon wore into dusk; and with dusk she re-appeared with a
tea-tray. At six I retired to dress.

Behold me now issuing from my chamber, conscious of a well-fitting coat
and a shapely pair of legs: the dignified simplicity of my _tournure_
(simplicity so proper to the scion of an exiled house) relieved by a
dandiacal hint of shirt-frill, and corrected into tenderness by the
virgin waistcoat sprigged with forget-me-nots (for constancy), and
buttoned with pink coral (for hope). Satisfied of the effect, I sought
the apartment of Mr. Rowley of the Rueful Countenance, and found him
less yellow, but still contrite, and listening to Mrs. McRankine, who
sat with open book by his bedside, and plied him with pertinent
dehortations from the Book of Proverbs.

He brightened.

"My heye, Mr. Hann, if that ain't up to the knocker!"

Mrs. McRankine closed the book, and conned me with austerer approval.

"Ye carry it well, I will say."

"It fits, I think."

I turned myself complacently about.

"The drink, I am meaning. I kenned McRankine."

"Shall we talk of business, madam? In the first place, the quittance for
our board and lodging."

"I mak' it out on Saturdays."

"Do so; and deduct it out of this." I handed twenty-five of my guineas
into her keeping; this left me with five and a crown piece in my pocket.
"The bal