him, a fresher bustle, in a London walk in the morning; these were
hours that he habitually spent at his table, in the awkward attitude
engendered by the poor piece of furniture, one of the rickety
features of Mrs. Bundy's second floor, which had to serve as his
altar of literary sacrifice. If by exception he went out when the
day was young he noticed that life seemed younger with it; there were
livelier industries to profit by and shop-girls, often rosy, to look
at; a different air was in the streets and a chaff of traffic for the
observer of manners to catch. Above all, it was the time when poor
Baron made his purchases, which were wholly of the wandering mind;
his extravagances, for some mysterious reason, were all matutinal,
and he had a foreknowledge that if ever he should ruin himself it
would be well before noon. He felt lavish this morning, on the
strength of what the Promiscuous would do for him; he had lost sight
for the moment of what he should have to do for the Promiscuous.
Before the old bookshops and printshops, the crowded panes of the
curiosity-mongers and the desirable exhibitions of mahogany "done
up," he used, by an innocent process, to commit luxurious follies.
He refurnished Mrs. Bundy with a freedom that cost her nothing, and
lost himself in pictures of a transfigured second floor.

On this particular occasion the King's Road proved almost
unprecedentedly expensive, and indeed this occasion differed from
most others in containing the germ of real danger. For once in a way
he had a bad conscience--he felt himself tempted to pick his own
pocket. He never saw a commodious writing-table, with elbow-room and
drawers and a fair expanse of leather stamped neatly at the edge with
gilt, without being freshly reminded of Mrs. Bundy's dilapidations.
There were several such tables in the King's Road--they seemed indeed
particularly numerous today. Peter Baron glanced at them all through