mouth to the surface to take breath, but very seldom, and with the
utmost caution. His office-door opened, he shoots past his clerk
at the same pace, and diving into his own private room, closes the
door, examines the window-fastenings, and gradually unrobes
himself: hanging his pocket-handkerchief on the fender to air, and
determining to write to the newspapers about the fog, which, he
says, 'has really got to that pitch that it is quite unbearable.'

In this last opinion Mrs. Merrywinkle and her respected mother
fully concur; for though not present, their thoughts and tongues
are occupied with the same subject, which is their constant theme
all day. If anybody happens to call, Mrs. Merrywinkle opines that
they must assuredly be mad, and her first salutation is, 'Why, what
in the name of goodness can bring you out in such weather? You
know you MUST catch your death.' This assurance is corroborated by
Mrs. Chopper, who adds, in further confirmation, a dismal legend
concerning an individual of her acquaintance who, making a call
under precisely parallel circumstances, and being then in the best
health and spirits, expired in forty-eight hours afterwards, of a
complication of inflammatory disorders. The visitor, rendered not
altogether comfortable perhaps by this and other precedents,
inquires very affectionately after Mr. Merrywinkle, but by so doing
brings about no change of the subject; for Mr. Merrywinkle's name
is inseparably connected with his complaints, and his complaints
are inseparably connected with Mrs. Merrywinkle's; and when these
are done with, Mrs. Chopper, who has been biding her time, cuts in
with the chronic disorder--a subject upon which the amiable old
lady never leaves off speaking until she is left alone, and very
often not then.