Chapter 9.

The doctor's pretty housemaid stood waiting for me with the street door open in her hand,

pouring brightly into the hall, the morning light fell full on the face of Mr. Candy's

assistant when I turned and looked at him.

It was impossible to dispute betterages assertion that the appearance of Ezra Jennings, speaking

from a popular point of view, was against him.

As fleshless cheeks, his gaunt facial bones, his dreamy eyes, his extraordinary party-colored

hair, the puzzling contradiction between his face and figure which made him look old and

young both together were all more or less calculated to produce an unfavorable impression of him

on a stranger's mind.

And yet, feeling this, as I certainly did, it is not to be denied that Ezra Jennings made

some inscrutable appeal to my sympathies, which I found it impossible to resist.

While my knowledge of the world warned me to answer the question which he had put, acknowledging

that I did indeed find Mr. Candy sadly changed, and then to proceed on my way out of the house,

my interest in Ezra Jennings held me rooted to the place, and gave him the opportunity

of speaking to me in private about his employer for which he had been evidently on the watch.

Are you walking my way, Mr. Jennings?

I said, observing that he held his hat in his hand, I am going to call on my aunt, Mrs.

Abel White.

Ezra Jennings replied that he had a patient to see, and that he was walking my way.

We left the house together, I observed that the pretty servant girl, who was all smiles

and amoeuability, when I was sure good morning on my way out, received a modest little message

...