Page:Richard Marsh--The joss, a reversion.djvu/201

Rh bachelor’s balm, a night at a music hall, was of no avail in diverting my mind from the house in Camford Street. In the body I might be present at a vocal rendering of the latest things in comic songs; in the spirit I was the other side of the water. Before the night was over I was there physically, too.

As the ten o’clock “turn” was coming on, and the brilliancy of the entertainment was supposed to have reached high-water mark, I walked down the stairs of the Cerulean and out into the street. I strolled down the Haymarket without any clear idea of where I meant to go.

“You’re an ass,” I told myself. “An ass, sir! If you’d stopped to see Pollie Floyd she’d have driven the cobwebs out of your head. You pay five shillings for a seat, and when, at last, there is going to be something worth looking at, and listening to, you get out of it, and throw away your money. At this time of night, where do you think you’re going?”

I knew all the time, although even to myself I did not choose to confess it—Camford Street. I made for it as straight as I could. It was past-half past ten when I got there. The street was nearly all in darkness. The public-houses were open; but, as they were not of the resplendent order, they were of but little use as illuminants. Mr. Kennard’s establishment was shut. Lights were visible in but few of the houses. No. 84, in the prevailing shadows, looked black as pitch. If