Cart, omnibus, cab, van, barrow, donkey-tray, went by in strings, broken here and there, and he could not induce his legs to take advantage of the gaps; he listened to a warning that he would be down again if he tried it, among those wheels; and his nerves clutched him, like a troop of household women, to keep him from the hazard of an exposure to the horrid crunch, pitiless as tiger's teeth; and we may say truly, that once down, or once out of the rutted line, you are food for lion and jackal--the forces of the world will have you in their mandibles.
An idea was there too; but it would not accept pursuit.
'A pretty scud overheard ?' said a voice at his ear.
'For fine!--to-day at least,' Mr.Radnor affably replied to a stranger; and gazing on the face of his friend Fenellan, knew the voice, and laughed: 'You ?' He straightened his back immediately to cross the road, dismissing nervousness as a vapour, asking, between a cab and a van: 'Anything doing in the City ?' For Mr.Fenellan's proper station faced Westward.
The reply was deferred until they had reached the pavement, when Mr.
Fenellan said: 'I'll tell you,' and looked a dubious preface, to his friend's thinking.
But it was merely the mental inquiry following a glance at mud-spots on the coat.
'We'll lunch; lunch with me, I must eat, tell me then,' said Mr.Radnor, adding within himself: 'Emptiness! want of food!' to account for recent ejaculations and qualms.

He had not eaten for a good four hours.
Fenellan's tone signified to his feverish sensibility of the moment, that the matter was personal; and the intimation of a touch on domestic affairs caused sinkings in his vacuity, much as though his heart were having a fall.
He mentioned the slip on the bridge, to explain his: need to visit a haberdasher's shop, and pointed at the waistcoat.
Mr.Fenellan was compassionate over the 'Poor virgin of the smoky city!' 'They have their ready-made at these shops--last year's: perhaps, never mind, do for the day,' said Mr.Radnor, impatient for eating, now that he had spoken of it.

'A basin of turtle; I can't wait.

A brush of the coat; mud must be dry by this time.

Clear turtle, I think, with a bottle of the Old Veuve.