nt of a sixpence was concerned; and simpler yet, perhaps, never
to suspect that when he went in first, alone, he paid the money! Simple
in thee, dear Tom, to laugh and cry so heartily at such a sorry show,
so poorly shown; simple to be so happy and loquacious trudging home
with Ruth; simple to be so surprised to find that merry present of
a cookery-book awaiting her in the parlour next morning, with the
beef-steak-pudding-leaf turned down and blotted out. There! Let
the record stand! Thy quality of soul was simple, simple, quite
contemptible, Tom Pinch!

CHAPTER FORTY

THE PINCHES MAKE A NEW ACQUAINTANCE, AND HAVE FRESH OCCASION FOR
SURPRISE AND WONDER

There was a ghostly air about these uninhabited chambers in the Temple,
and attending every circumstance of Tom's employment there, which had a
strange charm in it. Every morning when he shut his door at Islington,
he turned his face towards an atmosphere of unaccountable fascination,
as surely as he turned it to the London smoke; and from that moment it
thickened round and round him all day long, until the time arrived for
going home again, and leaving it, like a motionless cloud, behind.

It seemed to Tom, every morning, that he approached this ghostly
mist, and became enveloped in it, by the easiest succession of degrees
imaginable. Passing from the roar and rattle of the streets into the
quiet court-yards of the Temple, was the first preparation. Every echo
of his footsteps sounded to him like a sound from the old walls and
pavements, wanting language to relate the histories of the dim, dismal
rooms; to tell him what lost documents were decaying in forgotten
corners of the shut-up cellars, from whose lattices such mouldy sighs
came breathing forth as he went past; to whisper of dark bins of rare
old wine, bricked up in vaults among the old foundations of the Halls;
or mutter in a lower tone yet darker legends of the cross-legged
knights, whose marble effigies were in the church. With the first
planting of his foot upon the staircase of his dusty office, all these
mysteries increased; until, ascending step by step, as Tom ascended,
they attained their full growth in the solitary labours of the day.

Every day brought one recurring, never-failing source of speculation.
This employer; would he come to-day, and what would he be like? For
Tom could not stop short at Mr Fips; he quite believed that Mr Fips had
spoken truly, when he said he acted for another; and