No. He looks out the window. For a sensitive man, life is so difficult. But it’s full of marvels. A vestige of sunset trails through the muddy sky beyond the rooftops of Holborn, like a weathered feather from a rooster’s tail. Down below, in the courtyard, the grooms have hung out three big lanterns. They’re currying horses gilded with lamplight and mist. Herman lights a little Manila and goes down to take a look. The stable doors are open. The smell of straw, redolent of high roads and laneways, wafts out. Horse manure is a great poet. Herman plants himself in the middle of the yard, his legs spread wide. The stableboys lift the horses’ hoofs and let them drop. The shoes ring out on the paving stones. It’s a kind of galloping on the spot.

If anything can cure Herman, it’s to be found here and nowhere else. He proffers one of his little cigars. This alone leads to a good ten minutes of conversation about tobacco. The stableboy prefers Dutch cigars. Nevertheless, he eventually gets up from bending over the grooming pail, takes a few puffs, and declares that, all things considered, he could get used to the Manila pretty easily; the main thing is that somebody would have to supply him.

“Right,” says Herman, “I want to ask you something. Supposing you had ten days of freedom to do whatever you liked, what would you do?”

“That depends,” says the other. “In this ‘suppose’ of yours, would I be flush or would I be broke?”

“Let’s say you had five pounds.”

“Five,” says the other, “then it’s a cinch. I’d take off straightaway for Woodcut.”

“What’s Woodcut?”

“A village, of course.”

“And where is it?”

“Oh, it’s out Berkeley way, over there above Bristol.”

“And why? What’s so unusual about that place in particular?”

“Oh, it’s just a little hamlet, like any other.”

“So?”

“All right, it’s because Jenny’s in that place, in particular.”

“And who’s this Jenny?”

“My sweetheart, of course.”

“Very good then, it’s settled. Herman here is going to set out for Woodcut. If you have any message I can pass on to Jenny, my good man, don’t be shy about it.”

“With all due respect, master, I perform that kind of commission myself, but if you do go there, drop by Joshua’s place—that dirty swine—at the Sign of the Old Sea-Fish. Tell him to do you a rum the way he does one for Dick. The way he does one for Dick. You tell him that.”

Now this is just the kind of adventure Herman likes best. He leaves and heads down toward the port. Now it’s a matter of getting some clothes. He’s not about to go rambling along the back roads of the Welsh Borders wearing a spencer and fancy boots. Over here, at the back of the dockyards, he should be able to find what he needs. And so he does, in a secondhand shop in Limehouse. As he used to say to Mistress Melville, “When it comes to work clothes, the first ones I try on always fit. It’s only fancy, dress-up clothes that I need to have tailored, and they still always feel uncomfortable.”