It is no phenomenon that Mr. Snagsby should be ill at ease too, for he always is so, more or less, under the oppressive influence of the secret that is upon him.  Impelled by the mystery of which he is a partaker and yet in which he is not a sharer, Mr. Snagsby haunts what seems to be its fountain-head—­the rag and bottle shop in the court.  It has an irresistible attraction for him.  Even now, coming round by the Sol’s Arms with the intention of passing down the court, and out at the Chancery Lane end, and so terminating his unpremeditated after-supper stroll of ten minutes’ long from his own door and back again, Mr. Snagsby approaches.

“What, Mr. Weevle?” says the stationer, stopping to speak.  “Are you there?”

“Aye!” says Weevle, “Here I am, Mr. Snagsby.”

“Airing yourself, as I am doing, before you go to bed?” the stationer inquires.

“Why, there’s not much air to be got here; and what there is, is not very freshening,” Weevle answers, glancing up and down the court.

“Very true, sir.  Don’t you observe,” says Mr. Snagsby, pausing to sniff and taste the air a little, “don’t you observe, Mr. Weevle, that you’re—­not to put too fine a point upon it—­that you’re rather greasy here, sir?”

“Why, I have noticed myself that there is a queer kind of flavour in the place to-night,” Mr. Weevle rejoins.  “I suppose it’s chops at the Sol’s Arms.”

“Chops, do you think?  Oh!  Chops, eh?” Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again.  “Well, sir, I suppose it is.  But I should say their cook at the Sol wanted a little looking after.  She has been burning ’em, sir!  And I don’t think”—­Mr. Snagsby sniffs and tastes again and then spits and wipes his mouth—­“I don’t think—­ not to put too fine a point upon it—­that they were quite fresh when they were shown the gridiron.”

“That’s very likely.  It’s a tainting sort of weather.”

“It is a tainting sort of weather,” says Mr. Snagsby, “and I find it sinking to the spirits.”

“By George!  I find it gives me the horrors,” returns Mr. Weevle.

“Then, you see, you live in a lonesome way, and in a lonesome room, with a black circumstance hanging over it,” says Mr. Snagsby, looking in past the other’s shoulder along the dark passage and then falling back a step to look up at the house.  “I couldn’t live in that room alone, as you do, sir.  I should get so fidgety and worried of an evening, sometimes, that I should be driven to come to the door and stand here sooner than sit there.  But then it’s very true that you didn’t see, in your room, what I saw there.  That makes a difference.”

“I know quite enough about it,” returns Tony.

“It’s not agreeable, is it?” pursues Mr. Snagsby, coughing his cough of mild persuasion behind his hand.  “Mr. Krook ought to consider it in the rent.  I hope he does, I am sure.”

“I hope he does,” says Tony.  “But I doubt it.”