I thought the windows of the sets of chambers into which those houses were divided were in every stage of dilapidated blind and curtain, crippled flower-pot, cracked glass, dusty decay, and miserable makeshift; while To Let, To Let, To Let, glared at me from empty rooms, as if no new wretches ever came there, and the vengeance of the soul of Barnard were being slowly appeased by the gradual suicide of the present occupants and their unholy interment under the gravel.

A frowzy mourning of soot and smoke attired this forlorn creation of Barnard, and it had strewn ashes on its head, and was undergoing penance and humiliation as a mere dust-hole.

Thus far my sense of sight; while dry rot and wet rot and all the silent rots that rot in neglected roof and cellar,--rot of rat and mouse and bug and coaching-stables near at hand besides--addressed themselves faintly to my sense of smell, and moaned, "Try Barnard's Mixture." So imperfect was this realization of the first of my great expectations, that I looked in dismay at Mr.Wemmick.

"Ah!" said he, mistaking me; "the retirement reminds you of the country.

So it does me." He led me into a corner and conducted me up a flight of stairs,--which appeared to me to be slowly collapsing into sawdust, so that one of those days the upper lodgers would look out at their doors and find themselves without the means of coming down,--to a set of chambers on the top floor.MR.POCKET, JUN., was painted on the door, and there was a label on the letter-box, "Return shortly." "He hardly thought you'd come so soon," Mr.Wemmick explained.