Throughout that awful day he walked about the Coffee-room continually.  Often he came close up to my partition, and then his eye rolled within, too evidently in search of any signs of his Luggage.  Half-past six came, and I laid his cloth.  He ordered a bottle of old Brown.  I likewise ordered a bottle of old Brown.  He drank his.  I drank mine (as nearly as my duties would permit) glass for glass against his.  He topped with coffee and a small glass.  I topped with coffee and a small glass.  He dozed.  I dozed.  At last, “Waiter!”—­and he ordered his bill.  The moment was now at hand when we two must be locked in the deadly grapple.

Swift as the arrow from the bow, I had formed my resolution; in other words, I had hammered it out between nine and nine.  It was, that I would be the first to open up the subject with a full acknowledgment, and would offer any gradual settlement within my power.  He paid his bill (doing what was right by attendance) with his eye rolling about him to the last for any tokens of his Luggage.  One only time our gaze then met, with the lustrous fixedness (I believe I am correct in imputing that character to it?) of the well-known Basilisk.  The decisive moment had arrived.

With a tolerable steady hand, though with humility, I laid The Proofs before him.

“Gracious Heavens!” he cries out, leaping up, and catching hold of his hair.  “What’s this?  Print!”

“Sir,” I replied, in a calming voice, and bending forward, “I humbly acknowledge to being the unfortunate cause of it.  But I hope, sir, that when you have heard the circumstances explained, and the innocence of my intentions—­”

To my amazement, I was stopped short by his catching me in both his arms, and pressing me to his breast-bone; where I must confess to my face (and particular, nose) having undergone some temporary vexation from his wearing his coat buttoned high up, and his buttons being uncommon hard.

“Ha, ha, ha!” he cries, releasing me with a wild laugh, and grasping my hand.  “What is your name, my Benefactor?”

“My name, sir” (I was crumpled, and puzzled to make him out), “is Christopher; and I hope, sir, that, as such, when you’ve heard my ex—­”

“In print!” he exclaims again, dashing the proofs over and over as if he was bathing in them.—­“In print!!  O Christopher!  Philanthropist!  Nothing can recompense you,—­but what sum of money would be acceptable to you?”

I had drawn a step back from him, or I should have suffered from his buttons again.

“Sir, I assure you, I have been already well paid, and—­”

“No, no, Christopher!  Don’t talk like that!  What sum of money would be acceptable to you, Christopher?  Would you find twenty pounds acceptable, Christopher?”

However great my surprise, I naturally found words to say, “Sir, I am not aware that the man was ever yet born without more than the average amount of water on the brain as would not find twenty pounds acceptable.  But—­extremely obliged to you, sir, I’m sure;” for he had tumbled it out of his purse and crammed it in my hand in two bank-notes; “but I could wish to know, sir, if not intruding, how I have merited this liberality?”