Drood,' said Bazzard.
'What of him?'
'Has called,' said Bazzard.
'You might have shown him in.'
'I am doing it,' said Bazzard.
The visitor came in accordingly.
'Dear me!' said Mr. Grewgious, looking round his pair of office
candles. 'I thought you had called and merely left your name and
gone. How do you do, Mr. Edwin? Dear me, you're choking!'
'It's this fog,' returned Edwin; 'and it makes my eyes smart, like
Cayenne pepper.'
'Is it really so bad as that? Pray undo your wrappers. It's
fortunate I have so good a fire; but Mr. Bazzard has taken care of
me.'
'No I haven't,' said Mr. Bazzard at the door.
'Ah! then it follows that I must have taken care of myself without
observing it,' said Mr. Grewgious. 'Pray be seated in my chair.
No. I beg! Coming out of such an atmosphere, in MY chair.'
Edwin took the easy-chair in the corner; and the fog he had brought
in with him, and the fog he took off with his greatcoat and neck-
shawl, was speedily licked up by the eager fire.
'I look,' said Edwin, smiling, 'as if I had come to stop.'
' - By the by,' cried Mr. Grewgious; 'excuse my interrupting you;
do stop. The fog may clear in an hour or two. We can have dinner
in from just across Holborn. You had better take your Cayenne
pepper here than outside; pray stop and dine.'
'You are very kind,' said Edwin, glancing about him as though
attracted by the notion of a new and relishing sort of gipsy-party.
'Not at all,' said Mr. Grewgious; 'YOU are very kind to join issue
with a bachelor in chambers, and take pot-luck.
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