Page:The Princess Casamassima (London and New York, Macmillan & Co., 1886), Volume 1.djvu/182

 light in his window, which he could see from a court behind.

'Oh, I know I haven't been to see you for a long time,' he said, in response to the remark with which the fiddler greeted him; 'and I may as well tell you immediately what has brought me at present—in addition to the desire to ask after your health. I want to take a young lady to the theatre.'

Mr. Vetch was habited in a tattered dressing-gown; his apartment smelt strongly of the liquor he was consuming. Divested of his evening-gear he looked to our hero so plucked and blighted that on the spot Hyacinth ceased to hesitate as to his claims in the event of a social liquidation; he, too, was unmistakably a creditor. 'I'm afraid you find your young lady rather expensive.'

'I find everything expensive,' said Hyacinth, as if to finish that subject.

'Especially, I suppose, your secret societies.'

'What do you mean by that?' the young man asked, staring.

'Why, you told me, in the autumn, that you were just about to join a few.'

'A few? How many do you suppose?' And Hyacinth checked himself. 'Do you suppose if I had been serious I would tell?'

'Oh dear, oh dear,' Mr. Vetch murmured, with a sigh. Then he went on: 'You want to take her to my shop, eh?'

'I'm sorry to say she won't go there. She wants something in the Strand: that's a great point. She wants very much to see the Pearl of Paraguay. I don't wish to pay