"I'm for'ard," he declared, "standin' by!"
He could not perceive, poor man! that I was no longer to be dealt with
as a child.
* * * * *
There befell me in the city a singular encounter. 'Twas of a soggy,
dismal day: there was a searching wind abroad, I recall, to chill the
marrow of impoverished folk, a gray light upon all the slimy world, a
dispiriting fog flowing endlessly in scowling clouds over the hills to
thicken and eddy and drip upon the streets and harbor. It being now at
the crisis of my uncle's intoxication, I was come from my hotel alone,
wandering without aim, to speed the anxious hours. Abreast of the
familiar door of the Anchor and Chain, where long ago I had gratefully
drunk with Cap'n Jack Large, I paused; and I wondered, as I stared at
the worn brass knob, now broken into beads of cold sweat with the
weather, whether or not I might venture some persuasion upon my
perverse uncle, but was all at once plucked by the tail of my coat,
and turned in a rage to resent the impudence. 'Twas but a scrawny,
brass-buttoned boy, however, with an errand for the lad with the
rings, as they called me. I followed, to be sure, and was by this
ill-nourished messenger led to the crossing of King Street with Water,
where my uncle was used to tap-tapping the pavement. Thence in a
moment we ascended to a group of office-rooms, on the opposite side of
the street, wherein, having been ceremoniously ushered, I found the
gray stranger who had called me a club-footed, ill-begotten young
whelp, on that windy night at Twist Tickle, and had with meaning
complacency threatened my uncle's assassination.