"Oh, thank you, thank you," he exclaimed; "I _must_ speak to you; I shall wait for you till you come;" and he hurried away, once more looking furtively round the office as though fearing he were watched. From his manner it was evident to me that he was terribly perturbed about something and that his fears and suspicions were reaching a climax. "Whatever can be the matter?" I asked myself as I hammered away at my form. "Has anything serious really happened?" Towards seven o'clock I left the printing-office and the work to the tender mercies of Short, who was just writhing out of a peaceful sleep of some hours' duration on the "bed" of the machine, and made my way towards Giannoli's room, which though quite close was by no means easy of access. Turning to my right, half-way down the court-yard, I passed into Mrs. Wattles's house, at the summit of which my friend was located; and here at once my progress was arrested by that lady herself, only half sober and in a mood evidently requiring sympathy. "Oh, my dear," she exclaimed, "are you going up to see that pore young man? I don't know what's gone wrong with 'im of late, but for all the world 'e looks as if 'e were sickening for something. To look at 'im's enough. It just sets my inn'ards all of a 'eave and a rumble, and I 'ave to take a little drop o' something warm to settle 'em again." "Damnation!" I muttered inwardly at finding myself trapped at such a moment; but there was nothing for it; I had to wait and hear out the long and weary recital of the sickness and agony of her deceased son, to whom she had suddenly discovered a resemblance in Giannoli. At the end of a long discourse, full of those "sickening details" in which women of her class delight, she summed up her case with a brief but telling epitome of his career, to the effect that he never smoked, nor drank, nor swore, but that he "only gave one sniff and died;" and I, determined to escape from the inevitable sequel, when Wattles senior's vices would be declaimed in contrast to the son's virtues, beat a hasty retreat. A few scraps of this anticlimax, mingled with hiccups and sobs, wafted after me as I wended my way up the uneven wooden stairs. At the top of these a perilous-looking ladder gave access to a trap-door, through which I dexterously made my way into Giannoli's room.