CHAPTER II.
VALENTINE'S RECORD CONTINUED.
_October 15th_.

I left Omega-street for the City before noon, after a hasty breakfast with my friend Horatio, who was somewhat under the dominion of his black dog this morning, and far from pleasant company.
I was not to present myself to the worthy John Grewter, wholesale stationer, before the afternoon; but I had no particular reason for staying at home, and I had a fancy for strolling about the old City quarter in which Matthew Haygarth's youth had been spent.

I went to look at John-street, Clerkenwell, and dawdled about the immediate neighbourhood of Smithfield, thinking of the old fair-time, and of all the rioters and merry-makers, who now were so much or so little dust and ashes in City churchyards, until the great bell of St.Paul's boomed three, and I felt that it might be a leisure time with Mr.
Grewter.
I found the stationer's shop as darksome and dreary as City shops usually are, but redolent of that subtle odour of wealth which has a mystical charm for the nostrils of the penniless one.

Stacks of ledgers, mountains of account-books, filled the dimly-lighted warehouse.

Some clerks were at work behind a glass partition, and already the gas flared high in the green-shaded lamps above the desk at which they worked.