A mighty sigh escaped from the oppressed bosom of Gammon, as soon as, having quitted the house, he found himself in the street alone. He walked for some minutes straight on, irresolute as to whether he should direct his steps--to his own chambers, to the office in Hatton Garden, or to Mr. Titmouse's residence in Park Lane. At length he determined on returning, in the first instance, to his own chambers, and bent his steps accordingly; his mind so absorbed in thought, that he scarcely saw any one he met or passed. _Here_ was a state of things, thought he, which he had brought about! And what must be his own course now? For a moment or two he was in a state of feeling which we may compare to that of a person who, with ignorant curiosity, has set into motion the machinery of some prodigious engine, which it required but a touch to effect--and then stands suddenly paralyzed--bewildered--confounded at the complicated movements going on all around him, and perhaps the alarming noises accompanying them--not daring to move a hair's-breadth in any direction for fear of destruction. He soon, however, recovered himself, and began very seriously to contemplate the perilous position in which he now found himself placed. Here was Lord Dreddlington, in the first place, involved to a most alarming extent of liability in respect of his connection with one of the bubble companies, into an alliance with which it was Gammon alone who had seduced him. But he quickly lost sight of that, as a very light matter compared with what had subsequently happened, and the prodigious consequences to which it might possibly lead--and that, too, immediately. This crisis had been precipitated by an accident--an occurrence which he felt that no man could have foreseen or calculated upon. Certainly it might all be traced to his own oversight in leaving the conveyance of his rent-charge--so all-important a document--upon his table, though for only a minute or two's absence; for he had not quitted his chambers more than five minutes before he had re-entered them, finding the Earl of Dreddlington there--of all persons in the world the very last whom Gammon would have wished to be aware of the existence of such an instrument. Who could have imagined--calculated on such an occurrence? Never before had the earl visited him at his own private residence; and to have come just precisely at the very moment--and yet, thought Gammon, almost starting back a step or two--when one came to think of it--what was more likely than that, on seeing the paragraph in the morning paper, his Lordship should have done the very thing he had, and driven down to Mr. Gammon for an explanation? Bah! thought Mr. Gammon, and stamped his foot on the pavement. [Ay, Satan, it _was_ a very slippery trick indeed, which you had played this acute friend of yours.]