’For his professional kindness, if he will extend it to me, I will be most thankful,’ he replied.  She did not dare to say more; nor had she dared to write privately to her cousin, asking for any special help, lest by doing so she should seem to impugn the sufficiency and stability of her husband’s judgment.  He got up to town late at night, and having made inquiry of one of the porters, he hired a bed for himself in the neighbourhood of the railway station.  Here he had a cup of tea and a morsel of bread-and-butter, and in the morning he breakfasted again on the same fare.  ‘No I have no luggage,’ he had said to the girl at the public-house, who had asked him as to his travelling gear.  ’If luggage be needed as a certificate of respectability, I will pass on elsewhere,’ said he.  The girl stared, and assured him that she did not doubt his respectability.  ‘I am a clergyman of the Church of England,’ he had said, ’but my circumstances prevent me from seeking a more expensive lodging.’  They did their best to make him comfortable, and, I think, almost disappointed him in not heaping further misfortunes on his head.

He was in Raymond’s Buildings at half-past nine, and for half an hour walked up and down the umbrageous pavement—­it used to be umbrageous, but perhaps the trees have gone now—­before the doors of the various chambers.  He could hear the clock strike from Gray’s Inn; and the moment that it had struck he was turning in, but was encountered in the passage by Mr Toogood, who was equally punctual with himself.  Strange stories about Mr Crawley had reached Mr Toogood’s household, and that Maria, the mention of whose Christian name had been so offensive to the clergyman, had begged her husband not to be a moment late.  Poor Mr Toogood, who on ordinary days did perhaps take a few minutes’ grace, was thus hurried away almost with his breakfast in his throat, and, as we have seen, just saved himself.  ‘Perhaps, sir, you are Mr Crawley?’ he said, in a good-humoured, cheery voice.  He was a good-humoured, cheery-looking man, about fifty years of age, with grizzled hair and sunburnt face, and large whiskers.  Nobody would have taken him to be a partner in any of those great houses of which we have read in history—­the Quirk, Gammon and Snaps of the profession, or the Dodson and Foggs, who are immortal.

‘That is my name, sir,’ said Mr Crawley, taking off his hat and bowing low, ’and I am here by appointment to meet Mr Toogood, the solicitor, whose name I see affixed upon the door-post.’

’I am Mr Toogood, the solicitor, and I hope to see you quite well, Mr Crawley.’  Then the attorney shook hands with the clergyman and preceded him upstairs to the front room on the first floor.  ’Here we are, Mr Crawley, and pray take a chair.  I wish you could have made it convenient to come and see us at home.  We are rather long, as my wife says—­long in family, she means, and therefore are not very well off for spare beds—­’