very well known and often printed. The figure was stiff; but the
signature was good for more than that if it was only genuine. I took
the liberty of pointing out to my gentleman that the whole business
looked apocryphal, and that a man does not, in real life, walk into a
cellar door at four in the morning and come out with another man s
cheque for close upon a hundred pounds. But he was quite easy and
sneering. Set your mind at rest, says he, I will stay with you till
the banks open and cash the cheque myself. So we all set off, the
doctor, and the child s father, and our friend and myself, and passed
the rest of the night in my chambers; and next day, when we had
breakfasted, went in a body to the bank. I gave in the cheque myself,
and said I had every reason to believe it was a forgery. Not a bit of
it. The cheque was genuine.
Tut-tut! said Mr. Utterson.
I see you feel as I do, said Mr. Enfield. Yes, it s a bad story. For
my man was a fellow that nobody could have to do with, a really
damnable man; and the person that drew the cheque is the very pink of
the proprieties, celebrated too, and (what makes it worse) one of your
fellows who do what they call good. Blackmail, I suppose; an honest man
paying through the nose for some of the capers of his youth. Black Mail
House is what I call the place with the door, in consequence. Though
even that, you know, is far from explaining all, he added, and with
the words fell into a vein of musing.
From this he was recalled by Mr. Utterson asking rather suddenly: And
you don t know if the drawer of the cheque lives there?
A likely place, isn t it? returned Mr. Enfield. But I happen to have
noticed his address; he lives in some square or other.
And you never asked about the place with the door? said Mr. Utterson.
No, sir; I had a delicacy, was the reply. I feel very strongly about
putting questions; it partakes too much of the style of the day of
judgment. You start a question, and it s like starting a stone. You sit
quietly on the top of a hill; and away the stone goes, starting others;
and presently some bland old bird (the last you would have thought of)
is knocked on the head in his own back garden and the family have to
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