Blyth's copious stores of consolation, had partaken of an
excellent and plentiful hot lunch, and had passed an hour up stairs
with the ladies, he predicted his own reformation just as confidently
as be had predicted his own ruin about two hours before; and went away
to Kirk Street, to see that his friend Mat was at home to receive
Valentine that evening, stepping along as nimbly and swinging his stick
as cheerfully, as if he had already vindicated himself to his father by
winning every prize medal that the Royal Academy could bestow.
Seven o'clock had been fixed as the hour at which Mr. Blyth was to
present himself at the lodgings in Kirk Street. He arrived punctual to
the appointed time, dressed jauntily for the occasion in a short blue
frock coat, famous among all his acquaintances for its smartness of cut
and its fabulous old age. From what Zack had told him of Mat's lighter
peculiarities of character, he anticipated a somewhat uncivilized
reception from the elder of his two hosts; and when he got to Kirk
Street, he certainly found that his expectations were, upon the whole,
handsomely realized.
On mounting the dark and narrow wooden staircase of the tobacconist's
shop, his nose was greeted by a composite smell of fried liver and
bacon, brandy and water, and cigar smoke, pouring hospitably down to
meet him through the crevices of the drawing-room door.
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