days. It is all comprised in one street of gloomy lodging-houses, from
whose windows, in vacation-time, there frown long melancholy rows of
bills, which say, as plainly as did the countenances of their occupiers,
ranged on ministerial and opposition benches in the session which
slumbers with its fathers, 'To Let', 'To Let'. In busier periods of the
year these bills disappear, and the houses swarm with legislators. There
are legislators in the parlours, in the first floor, in the second, in
the third, in the garrets; the small apartments reek with the breath of
deputations and delegates. In damp weather, the place is rendered close,
by the steams of moist acts of parliament and frouzy petitions; general
postmen grow faint as they enter its infected limits, and shabby figures
in quest of franks, flit restlessly to and fro like the troubled ghosts
of Complete Letter-writers departed. This is Manchester Buildings; and
here, at all hours of the night, may be heard the rattling of latch-keys
in their respective keyholes: with now and then--when a gust of wind
sweeping across the water which washes the Buildings' feet, impels the
sound towards its entrance--the weak, shrill voice of some young member
practising tomorrow's speech. All the livelong day, there is a grinding
of organs and clashing and clanging of little boxes of music; for
Manchester Buildings is an eel-pot, which has no outlet but its awkward
mouth--a case-bottle which has no thoroughfare, and a short and narrow
neck--and in this respect it may be typical of the fate of some few
among its more adventurous residents, who, after wriggling themselves
into Parliament by violent efforts and contortions, find that it, too,
is no thoroughfare for them; that, like Manchester Buildings, it leads
to nothing beyond itself; and that they are fain at last to back out, no
wiser, no richer, not one whit more famous, than they went in.

Into Manchester Buildings Nicholas turned, with the address of the great
Mr Gregsbury in his hand. As there was a stream of people pouring into