‘I must get to the City as soon as I can,’ he said. ‘Good-bye, Schanck. I’ll come and see you again some day; or you, who are an idle man, might come to see me. Here’s my card with the address, ever so far eastward of the wharf where you landed this afternoon. I thank Providence for our meeting to-day. It has taken a great load off my mind; but it has also given me a new source of anxiety.’ This was Greek to Mr. Schanck, who only sighed, and murmured something about ‘subber,’ and ‘gurried rappit,’ strong in his supply of tinned provisions. Lucius bade him a hearty good-night, and departed from the calm flats of Battersea, eager to wend his way back to the Shadrack-road. CHAPTER XVII. LUCIUS SEEKS ENLIGHTENMENT. Lucius was more than usually solicitous for the security of the old house in the Shadrack-road after his meeting with Absalom Schanck; locks and bolts were adjusted with an almost mathematical precision under his eye, or even by his own hand; and Mr. Magsby, the ex-policeman, remarked to Mrs. Magsby, in the confidence of the domestic hearth, that for a young gentleman, Mr. Davoring was the fidgettiest and worritingest he had ever had dealings with. Whereupon Mrs. Magsby, who entertained a reverential admiration for Lucius, protested that she could see no fidgettiness in taking precautions against thieves in a house which had already been robbed; and that burnt children are apt to be timid of fire; and, in short, that in her opinion, whatever Mr. Davoren did, he was always ‘the gentleman.’ Early on the day following his visit to Battersea, Lucius went in quest of Jacob Wincher at the address which the old servant had given him at departing. Mrs. Hickett’s, Crown-and-Anchor-alley, was an abode of modest dimensions, the ground floor being comprised by a small square parlour with a corner cut off for the staircase, and an offshoot of an apartment, with a lean-to roof, in the rear, which served as a kitchen. The parlour, into which the street-door opened directly, was, in the continental sense, Mr. and Mrs. Wincher’s ‘apartment,’ since it constituted their sole and entire abode. That convenient fiction, a sofa-bedstead, with a chintz cover which frequent washing had reduced to a pale pea-soup colour, occupied one side of the apartment; a Pembroke table, a chest of drawers, and three Windsor chairs filled the remaining space, and left limited standing room for the inhabitants.