Nor did my uncle’s labours cease with this; for judging that amid the excitement, heat, and confusion of the hour, Curling would entirely lose sight of his own and his wife’s domestic needs, he had performed a tour of the shops, whence he had sent to them wine, poultry, groceries--in short, everything he in his dizziness could think of, finally arriving at the bank in the condition I have just described; though not to find rest yet. For, scarcely was his panting narrative concluded, when in came a client--one of those thick-headed, dull-minded farmers, who spell their names thus: +, and grin as they pronounce themselves no scholards; who, taking a seat, with his hat between his legs, began in a tongue turbid with Z’s, to demonstrate some mental difficulty he was labouring under with regard to a bill which, his son having died since it came into his possession, he had nobody now to read to him; and his memory being weak, could not recollect the date, the sum, or the conditions.
“By the way,” I exclaimed to my uncle just before leaving the bank, “what has become of my clothes?”
“All your things are packed up, and gone to Grove End.”
“I’ll just go and have a look round,” said I.
You will understand my uneasiness, when I tell you that, besides several letters I had written to Theresa, none of which had satisfied me, though I had not destroyed them, there were various hints for, and beginnings of, poems in the drawer of my dressing-table, which I would not have had Conny read for a very great deal. Suppose these poetical fragments were satires referring to the false and fickle Being whose initials were “C. H.:” now changed to “C. C.?” Suppose they were nothing of the kind? The most candid biographer is permitted to keep something back from the eye of a discerning public: and the contents of that dressing-table drawer are my secret.
“Make haste,” said my uncle: “I’ll wait for you.”
Off I started, not at all liking to intrude upon the young people, but resolute to save my papers. To my great relief, I found they had gone out for a walk, leaving directions with the landlady to have a chicken cooked by six o’clock. Likewise a pair of soles, and a cherry-pie.
I rushed up-stairs, and found--what I had expected: all my papers! What a narrow escape! Let me sit down, and take breath. But perhaps Conny had already peeped at them? Avaunt, odious thought! With eager hands I rolled them into a bundle, stared about me to see that no further memorial of mine encumbered the room, and then returned to the bank.