unserviceable bitterness and mortification, slowly passing before
him.
'Beg pardon, sir,' said a brisk waiter, rubbing the table. 'Wish
see bed-room?'

'Yes. I have just made up my mind to do it.'

'Chaymaid!' cried the waiter. 'Gelen box num seven wish see room!'

'Stay!' said Clennam, rousing himself. 'I was not thinking of what
I said; I answered mechanically. I am not going to sleep here. I
am going home.'

'Deed, sir? Chaymaid! Gelen box num seven, not go sleep here,
gome.'

He sat in the same place as the day died, looking at the dull
houses opposite, and thinking, if the disembodied spirits of former
inhabitants were ever conscious of them, how they must pity
themselves for their old places of imprisonment. Sometimes a face
would appear behind the dingy glass of a window, and would fade
away into the gloom as if it had seen enough of life and had
vanished out of it. Presently the rain began to fall in slanting
lines between him and those houses, and people began to collect
under cover of the public passage opposite, and to look out
hopelessly at the sky as the rain dropped thicker and faster. Then
wet umbrellas began to appear, draggled skirts, and mud. What the
mud had been doing with itself, or where it came from, who could
say? But it seemed to collect in a moment, as a crowd will, and in
five minutes to have splashed all the sons and daughters of Adam.