At hearing this conversation, the young gentleman was greatly annoyed; and in order to avoid any farther intelligence concerning himself, he took his departure, for the hour appointed for meeting his friend Stephen was now very near at hand. He was in very ill-humour with what he had heard, and was quite shocked at the liberties which common people took with the names and affairs of persons of rank. He had composed in his own mind, and was uttering with his mind’s voice, a most eloquent philippic against the daring insolence of plebeian animals, who presumed to canvass the conduct of their superiors; and he was dwelling upon the enviable privacy of more humble life, which was not so watched and advertised in all its movements, till it occurred to him that this publicity was one of the distinctions of high life, and that even calumnious reports concerning the great were but a manifestation of the interest which the world took in their movements. It also came into his mind that many of those actions which seem otherwise unaccountable and ridiculous, owe their being to a love of notoriety; and he thought it not unlikely that some of the great might play fools’ tricks for the sake of being talked of by the little. So his anger abated, and he more than forgave the impertinent one who had made free with his name in a newspaper. It has been said that we live in a strange world. We deny this position altogether. Nothing is less strange than this world and its contents. But if we will voluntarily and wilfully keep our eyes closed, and form an imaginary world of our own, and only occasionally awake and take a transient glance of reality, and then go back to our dreamings, the world may well enough be strange to us. CHAPTER VII. “How durst you come into this room and company without leave?” KILLEGREW. Philip Martindale proceeded, as we have stated, from the coffee-house towards Tothill Street, with a view of keeping his engagement with his friend of the scarlet coat and crimson countenance. He had entered into his memorandum-book the number of the house to which he had been directed, but he omitted as useful a notice, namely, to take down the division or apartment in which the gentleman of the pit had his residence. For the fact is, that the ingenious bird-feeder and fancier resided in an upper apartment, nearer to the sky by one flight of stairs than the Hon. Philip Martindale imagined. The house was a miserable contrast to the splendid mansion which he had left. Whether it had ever been cleansed either by paint or water, since the day it was built, seemed a matter of doubt. The windows had been broken, and had been mended partially but not with glass. The very window-frames seemed to be in such a state of dilapidation that a breeze might blow them from their position.