In what precise number of preliminary mental entanglements he involved
himself; before arriving at the desired solution, it would not be very
easy to say. As usual, his thoughts wandered every now and then from
his subject in the most irregular manner; actually straying away, on
one occasion as far as the New World itself; and unintelligibly
occupying themselves with stories he had heard, and conversations he
had held in various portions of that widely-extended sphere, with
vagabond chance-comrades from all parts of civilized Europe. How his
mind ever got back from these past times and foreign places to present
difficulties and future considerations connected with the guest who was
expected in Kirk Street, Mat himself would have been puzzled to tell.
But it did eventually get back, nevertheless; and, what was still more
to the purpose, it definitely and thoroughly worked out the intricate
problem that had been set it to solve.
Not a whispered word of the plan he had now hit on dropped from Mat's
lips, as, turning it this way and that in his thoughts, he walked
briskly back to town in the first fresh tranquillity of the winter
morning. Discreet as he was, however, either some slight practical
hints of his present project must have oozed out through his actions
when he got back to London; or his notion of the sort of hospitable
preparation which ought to be made for the reception of Mr.
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