50, and,
having spoken a word to the door-keeper, goes up stairs. Then, he
informs his readers that he rang the doctor's bell; and how, the door
being opened by a boy in livery, he was shewn into a drawing-room.
Here, he tells us, he sat down in company with a number of other
patients, waiting their turn to be called by the doctor. Vastly
amusing all this, but nothing to what follows:--'For a considerable
time we all sat in mute silence, and, indeed, in our respective
attitudes, almost motionless, save that every now and then a
gentleman, and sometimes a lady, would arise, slowly walk diagonally
across the carpet to a corner close to the window, press with his or
her hand the top of a little mahogany machine that looked like an
umbrella-stand, look down into it, and then very slowly, at a sort of
funereal pace, walk back. All this I bore with great fortitude for
some time: at last, overpowered by curiosity, I arose, walked slowly
and diagonally across the carpet, pushed the thing in the corner
exactly as I had seen everybody else push it, looked just as they did,
downwards, where, close to the floor, I beheld open, in obedience to
the push I had given from the top, the lid of a spitting-box, from
which I very slowly, and without attracting the smallest observation,
walked back to my chair.
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