These latter words he addressed to a clerk who had tapped at the door,
and now looked in.

"Yes, sir. I merely wished to mention that it's gone ten, sir, and that
there are several females in the Counting-house."

"Dear me!" said the wine-merchant, deepening in the pink of his
complexion and whitening in the white, "are there several? So many as
several? I had better begin before there are more. I'll see them one by
one, Jarvis, in the order of their arrival."

Hastily entrenching himself in his easy-chair at the table behind a great
inkstand, having first placed a chair on the other side of the table
opposite his own seat, Mr. Wilding entered on his task with considerable
trepidation.

He ran the gauntlet that must be run on any such occasion. There were
the usual species of profoundly unsympathetic women, and the usual
species of much too sympathetic women. There were buccaneering widows
who came to seize him, and who griped umbrellas under their arms, as if
each umbrella were he, and each griper had got him. There were towering
maiden ladies who had seen better days, and who came armed with clerical
testimonials to their theology, as if he were Saint Peter with his keys.
There were gentle maiden ladies who came to marry him. There were
professional housekeepers, like non-commissioned officers, who put him
through his domestic exercise, instead of submitting themselves to
catechism. There were languid invalids, to whom salary was not so much
an object as the comforts of a private hospital. There were sensitive
creatures who burst into tears on being addressed, and had to be restored
with glasses of cold water. There were some respondents who came two