The
sternest realities of life were what he dealt with. He had no taste for
the sublime or the beautiful.
Sir Giles had just paid an inquisitorial visit, such as we have
described, to the prison, and was returning homewards over Fleet Bridge,
when he encountered Sir Francis Mitchell, who was coming in quest of
him, and they proceeded to his habitation together. Nothing beyond a
slight greeting passed between them in the street, for Sir Giles was
ever jealous of his slightest word being overheard; but he could see
from his partner's manner that something had occurred to annoy and
irritate him greatly. Sir Giles was in no respect changed since the
reader last beheld him. Habited in the same suit of sables, he still
wore the same mantle, and the same plumed hat, and had the same long
rapier by his side. His deportment, too, was as commanding as before,
and his aspect as stern and menacing.
Sir Francis, however, had not escaped the consequences naturally to be
expected from the punishment inflicted upon him by the apprentices,
being so rheumatic that he could scarcely walk, while a violent cough,
with which he was occasionally seized, and which took its date from the
disastrous day referred to, and had never left him since, threatened to
shake his feeble frame in pieces; this, added to the exasperation under
which he was evidently labouring, was almost too much for him.
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