three calendar months, the said Edward Hyde should step into the said
Henry Jekyll s shoes without further delay and free from any burthen or
obligation beyond the payment of a few small sums to the members of the
doctor s household. This document had long been the lawyer s eyesore.
It offended him both as a lawyer and as a lover of the sane and
customary sides of life, to whom the fanciful was the immodest. And
hitherto it was his ignorance of Mr. Hyde that had swelled his
indignation; now, by a sudden turn, it was his knowledge. It was
already bad enough when the name was but a name of which he could learn
no more. It was worse when it began to be clothed upon with detestable
attributes; and out of the shifting, insubstantial mists that had so
long baffled his eye, there leaped up the sudden, definite presentment
of a fiend.
I thought it was madness, he said, as he replaced the obnoxious paper
in the safe, and now I begin to fear it is disgrace.
With that he blew out his candle, put on a greatcoat, and set forth in
the direction of Cavendish Square, that citadel of medicine, where his
friend, the great Dr. Lanyon, had his house and received his crowding
patients. If anyone knows, it will be Lanyon, he had thought.
The solemn butler knew and welcomed him; he was subjected to no stage
of delay, but ushered direct from the door to the dining-room where Dr.
Lanyon sat alone over his wine. This was a hearty, healthy, dapper,
red-faced gentleman, with a shock of hair prematurely white, and a
boisterous and decided manner. At sight of Mr. Utterson, he sprang up
from his chair and welcomed him with both hands. The geniality, as was
the way of the man, was somewhat theatrical to the eye; but it reposed
on genuine feeling. For these two were old friends, old mates both at
school and college, both thorough respecters of themselves and of each
other, and what does not always follow, men who thoroughly enjoyed each
other s company.
After a little rambling talk, the lawyer led up to the subject which so
disagreeably preoccupied his mind.
I suppose, Lanyon, said he, you and I must be the two oldest friends
that Henry Jekyll has?
8