Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/21

 me. I’m not a bad-looking fellow, that’s the truth, and she may have taken a real liking to me. Seems to me that I should have come in for a comfortable thing in my old age; if I haven’t a daughter to provide for my needs, at all events I shall have a wife who can be persuaded into doing so. When the old woman gets out of the way I must have a little quiet talk with Clem.”

The opportunity he desired was not long in offering itself Having made an excellent breakfast, he dragged his chair up to the fender again, and reached a pipe from the mantelpiece, where he had left it last night. Tobacco he carried loose in his waistcoat pocket; it came forth in the form of yellowish dust, intermingled with all sorts of alien scraps. When he had lit his pipe, he poised the chair on its hind-legs, clasped his hands over his bald crown, and continued his musing with an air of amiable calm. Smoke curled up from the corner of his loose lips, and occasionally, removing his pipe for an instant, he spat skilfully between the bars