He left the office feeling depressed. Spent anger generally leaves depression behind it.

Hancock's admission that his mother had been treated harshly by her family, though a well-known fact to him, did not decrease his gloom. He considered the thousands that ought to have fallen to her share, that had fallen to the share of Patience instead. For a second a wild hatred of the Hancocks and all their ways filled his breast, and he felt an inclination to take the five-pound note from his pocket, roll it into a ball, and fling it into the gutter. Not being a lunatic, he didn't.[Pg 270] He went and dined instead, though it was only a little after five, and having dined he went back to the studio.

Verneede had not yet returned. At ten o'clock Verneede had not yet returned. Midnight struck.

"Can he be staying there the night?" thought Leavesley, who had gone to bed with a novel and a pipe and an ear, so to say, on every footstep ascending the stairs.

People often stayed the night at the Lamberts' drinking punch and playing cards; he had done so himself once.

He woke at seven and dressed, and at eight he was standing before the house of Verneede in Maple Street.

"Hin!" said the landlady, "I should think he was hin; and thankful he ought to be he's not hin the police station."

"Good gracious, what has happened?"

"Woke us up at two in the mornin' hangin' like a coal sack over the railin's; might a-tumbled into the airy and broke his neck. Disgraceful, I call it!"

"May I go up and see him?"

"Yus, you can go up—he's in the top floor[Pg 271] back—trouble enough we had to get him there."

Leavesley went up to the top floor back. The unfortunate Verneede was in bed, trying to remember things. He had brought his umbrella home safely, but in the pockets of his clothes, after diligent search in the grey dawn, he had been able to discover only one halfpenny. To make up for this deficiency, his head was swelled up till it felt like a pumpkin.

"Good gracious, Verneede," cried Leavesley, staring at him, "what on earth has happened to you?

"A fit, I think," said Verneede.

"Did you go to Highgate?"

"Of course—of course; pray, my dear Leavesley, hand me the washing jug."

He began to drink from the jug.

"Stop!" said Leavesley, "you'll burst!"