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The Complete Works of Charles Dickens: Our mutual friend
The Complete Works of Charles Dickens Our mutual friend Author:Charles Dickens Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: a snore, by dexterously shunting a train of plates and dishes at her knuckles across the table; when everybody but Mortimer himself becomes aware that the Analyt... more »ical Chemist is, in a ghostly manner, offering him a folded paper. Curiosity detains Mrs. Veneering a few moments. Mortimer, in spite of all the arts-of the chemist, placidly refreshes himself with a glass of Madeira, and remains unconscious of the document which engrosses the general attention, until Lady 'Pippins (who has a habit of waking totally insensible), having remembered where she is, and recovered a perception of surrounding objects, says: " Falser man than Don Juan; why don't you take the note from the Commendatorc ?" Upon which, the chemist advances it under the nose of Mortimer, who looks round at him, and says: " What's this ? " Analytical Chemist bonds and whispers. " Who f " says Mortimer. Analytical Chemist again bends and whispers. Mortimer stares at him, and unfolds the paper. Reads it, reads it twice, turns it over to look at the blank outside, reads it a third time. " This arrives in an extraordinarily opportune manner," says Mortimer then, looking with an altered face round the table: " this is the conclusion of the story of the identical man." " Already married ? " one guesses. " Declines to marry ? " another guesses. " Codicil among the dust ? " another guesses. " Why, no," says Mortimer; " remarkable thing, yon are all wrong. The story is completer and rather more exciting than I supposed. Man's drowned !" CHAPTER III. ANOTHER MAN. As the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneering staircase, Mortimer, following them forth from the dining-room, turned into a library of bran-new books, in bran-new bindings liberally gilded, and requested to see ...« less