'Mr. Sampson, MAY I ask? Poor Meltham, whom we spoke of, - dead
yet?'

'Not when I last heard of him; but too broken a man to live long,
and hopelessly lost to his old calling.'

'Dear, dear, dear!' said he, with great feeling. 'Sad, sad, sad!
The world is a grave!' And so went his way.

It was not his fault if the world were not a grave; but I did not
call that observation after him, any more than I had mentioned
those other things just now enumerated. He went his way, and I
went mine with all expedition. This happened, as I have said,
either at the end of September or beginning of October. The next
time I saw him, and the last time, was late in November.



V.


I had a very particular engagement to breakfast in the Temple. It
was a bitter north-easterly morning, and the sleet and slush lay
inches deep in the streets. I could get no conveyance, and was
soon wet to the knees; but I should have been true to that
appointment, though I had to wade to it up to my neck in the same
impediments.

The appointment took me to some chambers in the Temple. They were