f the Mr Garlands
instantly. It was very possible that Mr Abel had not yet left the
office. In as little time as it takes to tell it, the small servant
had the address in pencil on a piece of paper; a verbal description of
father and son, which would enable her to recognise either, without
difficulty; and a special caution to be shy of Mr Chuckster, in
consequence of that gentleman's known antipathy to Kit. Armed with
these slender powers, she hurried away, commissioned to bring either
old Mr Garland or Mr Abel, bodily, to that apartment.

'I suppose,' said Dick, as she closed the door slowly, and peeped into
the room again, to make sure that he was comfortable, 'I suppose
there's nothing left--not so much as a waistcoat even?'

'No, nothing.'

'It's embarrassing,' said Mr Swiveller, 'in case of fire--even an
umbrella would be something--but you did quite right, dear Marchioness.
I should have died without you!'

CHAPTER 65

It was well for the small servant that she was of a sharp, quick
nature, or the consequence of sending her out alone, from the very
neighbourhood in which it was most dangerous for her to appear, would
probably have been the restoration of Miss Sally Brass to the supreme
authority over her person. Not unmindful of the risk she ran, however,
the Marchioness no sooner left the house than she dived into the first
dark by-way that presented itself, and, without any present reference
to the point to which her journey tended, made it her first business to
put two good miles of brick and mortar between herself and Bevis Marks.

When she had accomplished this object, she began to shape her course
for the notary's office, to which--shrewdly inquiring of apple-women
and oyster-sellers at street-corners, rather than in lighted shops or
of well-dressed people, at the hazard of attracting notice--she easily
procured a direction. As carrier-pigeons, on being first let loose in
a strange place, beat the air at random for a short time before darting
off towards the spot for which they are designed, so did the
Marchioness flutter round and round until she believed herself in
safety, and then bear swiftly down upon the port for which she was
bound.

She had no bonnet--nothing on her head but a great cap which, in some
old time, had been worn by Sally Brass, whose taste in head-dresses
was, as we have seen, peculiar--and her speed was rather retarded than
assisted by her shoes, which, being extreme