Lawyer St. Henry sat at his well-spread breakfast table. He was a little man with a bald head and good-natured face, who enjoyed his breakfast as well as all his other meals. Since his nieces had considered it necessary to their spiritual welfare to attend matins at St. Jerome's, the lawyer had been condemned to breakfast alone. The sun shone on the street, and Mr. St. Henry sat in a room that faced it. Through the wire blinds he could see all the passings and re-passings of his neighbours; which he very well liked to do; as well as the doings of Paradise Row opposite.
"Hallo!" he cried, catching sight of a face at Mrs. Jinks's parlour window, "Cattacomb's not gone out this morning! Puff must have come over early to officiate. Thinks he'll take it easy, I suppose, now he's got an underling: no blame to him, either. The girls will be dished for once. Nobody goes down with 'em like Cattacomb."
Laughing a little at the thought, he helped himself to a portion of a tempting-looking cutlet surrounded with mushrooms. This being nearly despatched, he had leisure to look abroad again and make his mental comments.
"There goes the doctor: he's out early this morning. Going to see old Etheredge, perhaps: wonder how the old fellow is. And there's Mother Jinks taking in a sweetbread. Must be for the parson's breakfast. Sweetbreads are uncommonly good, too: I'll have one myself to-morrow morning if it can be got. Why, here comes Sir Karl Andinnian! _He_ is out early, too. That young man looks to me as though he had some care upon him. It's a nice countenance; very: and if--I declare he is coming here! What on earth can he want?"
Sir. Karl Andinnian was ringing the door-bell. It has been already said that the lawyer's offices were in Basham, for which place he generally started as soon as breakfast was over. Therefore, if any client wished to see him at Foxwood, it had to be early in the morning or late in the evening. This was known and understood.
Sir Karl was shown in, Mr. St. Henry glancing at his breakfast-table and the three or four dirty plates upon it. He had finished now, and they sat down together at the window. Sir Karl, not to detain him unnecessarily, entered at once upon the question he had come to ask--Had he, or had he not, power to do anything with St. Jerome's? And the lawyer laughed a little; for St. Jerome's afforded him fun, rather than otherwise.