from my persecutor; when, one dark November evening--one of those
peculiarly English evenings, full of fog and gloom, when the
half-frozen sleet, joined in its descent by gutters from the
house-tops, comes driving full in your face, blinding you to all
external objects--on one of these blessed evenings, on my road to
Camden Town, I chanced to miss my way, and was compelled,
notwithstanding a certain shyness towards strangers, to ask my
direction of the first respectable person I should meet. Many passed
me by, but none sufficiently prepossessing; when, on turning down
some nameless street that leads to Tottenham Court-road, I chanced
to come behind a staid-looking gentleman, accoutred in a dark brown
coat, with an umbrella--the cotton of which had shrunk half-way up
the whalebone--held obliquely over his head. Hastily stepping up to
him, "Pray, sir," said I, "could you be kind enough to direct me to
---- place, Camden Town?"

The unknown, thus addressed, made the slightest possible inclination
towards me; and then, in an under tone, "I believe, sir, your name
is D----?"

I paused; a vague sort of recollection came over me. Could it
be?--no, surely not! And yet the voice--the manner--the--the--

My suspicions were soon converted into certainty, when the stranger,
with his own peculiar expression, quietly broke forth a second time
with, "Touching that little account--"

This was enough; it was more than enough--it was vexatiously
superfluous. To be dunned for a debt, at the very time when the
nerves could best dispense with the application; to be recalled back