fellow clerks; for although it was but an hour and a half since he quitted them, who could tell what might have occurred in that brief space? No doubt, the person who wrote the letter, as well as the one to whom it was addressed, would lose no time in applying to the post-office for an explanation; and it would be easily ascertained that it had passed through his department. To present himself with an agitated countenance was meeting discovery half way; and he felt that if he could only get over this if he could but escape suspicion this time, no embarrassment, no temptation however powerful, should ever again induce him to risk his soul's tranquillity on such a fearful cast.
But it is not easy for a man with his hat over his brow, and his hands behind his back to compose his thoughts in Cheapside, where he stumbled over a truck one minute, and was pushed off the pavement the next, and Mr. Wetherall, after making the experiment, found that he was staying away from his office, which was itself an offence, and might look suspicious, without any chance of regaining the requisite composure, so he braced his nerves as well as he could, and walked in.
