"To see what I am doing!" said Charley bitterly. And then his thoughts reverted to the past, and he came to the conclusion that it does not fall to the lot of any of us to pass a life of uninterrupted happiness, such as his had been until he first set eyes upon Ella. "Branksome-street, sir?" cried the driver through his little trap-door. "Number nineteen, sir?" "How did you know that I wanted number nineteen?" said Charley pettishly; "I did not name a number." "Lor' bless you, sir, this makes, I should think, a score of times I've been here in the course of a couple of years' hansom-driving. I never come wunst when it was a growler I druv. You want number nineteen, sir--private-inkviry orfice--that's what you want." "And how did you know that?" said Charley, who could not help feeling amused. "How did I know that, sir?" grinned the man. "It's a sort of instinkt, sir, as is only possessed by drivers of kebs. Here you are, sir--number nineteen. Up on the first floor for Mr Whittrick." Charley leaped out, ran up the stairs indicated; and directly after he was in the office of Mr Whittrick, of private-inquiry celebrity. Volume 2, Chapter XVII. PRIVATE-INQUIRY. Waiting your turn in a dull cheerless room along with half a dozen more people who always seem oil to your water or _vice versa_, so as to insure non-mixing, is about one of the most unpleasant things in life. It is bad enough at the doctor's, where you sit and wonder what is the matter with your neighbours right or left, and whether their complaints are infectious; but at a private-inquiry office at a busy time it is ten times worse. There is such a general disposition evinced by everybody to turn his back on everybody else; an act which the actor soon finds out to be an utter impossibility; for though he gets on very well with respect to two or three, he soon finds that, however clever a mathematician he may be, he cannot place himself in the required position; and, as a matter of course, he turns rusty, and resents the presence of the other waiters--waiters, of course not in the hotel and coffee-room sense of the term. To do Charley Vining justice, he was as ill-tempered as any one present; but he refrained from showing it, and tried to tranquillise his mind into a state of wonderment as to the business of others present. Was there any one seeking the address of some daughter or sister very dear?--was any one moved by the tender passion? It did not seem like it, judging from the countenances around.