We must have been over an hour with him up there in the bed-room, and even then we did not leave him. As it was manifest that he could do no work on that day, we collected the papers together, and proposed that he should take a walk with us. He was patient as we shovelled together the Doctor’s pages, and did not object to our suggestion. We found it necessary to call up Mrs. Grimes to assist us in putting away the “Opus magnum,” and were astonished to find how much she had come to know about the work. Added to the Doctor’s manuscript there were now the pages of Mackenzie’s indexes,--and there were other pages of reference, for use in making future indexes,--as to all of which Mrs. Grimes seemed to be quite at home. We have no doubt that she was familiar with the names of Greek tragedians, and could have pointed out to us in print the performances of the chorus. “A little fresh air’ll do you a deal of good, Mr. Mackenzie,” she said to the unfortunate man,--“only take a biscuit in your pocket.” We got him out to the street, but he angrily refused to take the biscuit which she endeavoured to force into his hands. That was a memorable walk. Turning from the end of Liquorpond Street up Gray’s Inn Lane towards Holborn, we at once came upon the entrance into a miserable court. “There,” said he; “it is down there that I live. She is sleeping it off now, and the children are hanging about her, wondering whether mother has got money to have another go at it when she rises. I’d take you down to see it all, only it’d sicken you.” We did not offer to go down the court, abstaining rather for his sake than for our own. The look of the place was as of a spot squalid, fever-stricken, and utterly degraded. And this man who was our companion had been born and bred a gentleman,--had been nourished with that soft and gentle care which comes of wealth and love combined,--had received the education which the country gives to her most favoured sons, and had taken such advantage of that education as is seldom taken by any of those favoured ones;--and Cucumber Court, with a drunken wife and four half-clothed, half-starved children, was the condition to which he had brought himself! The world knows nothing higher nor brighter than had been his outset in life,--nothing lower nor more debased than the result. And yet he was one whose time and intellect had been employed upon the pursuit of knowledge,--who even up to this day had high ideas of what should be a man’s career,--who worked very hard and had always worked,--who as far as we knew had struck upon no rocks in the pursuit of mere pleasure. It had all come to him from that idea of his youth that it would be good for him “to take refuge from the conventional thraldom of so-called gentlemen amidst the liberty of the lower orders.” His life, as he had himself owned, had indeed been a mistake.