But come, make us a drop of something hot; a little drop will do yourself good; but it's better not to take it before him, unless when he presses you.' So the two ladies sat down to console themselves, as best they might, for the reverses which trade and love so often bring with them.
Charley walked off a miserable man.

He was thoroughly ashamed of himself, thoroughly acknowledged his own weakness; and yet as he went out from the 'Cat and Whistle,' he felt sure that he should return there again to renew the degradation from which he had suffered this night.

Indeed, what else could he do now?
He had, as it were, solemnly plighted his troth to the girl before a third person who had brought them together, with the acknowledged purpose of witnessing that ceremony.

He had, before Mrs.Davis, and before the girl herself, heard her spoken of as his wife, and had agreed to the understanding that such an arrangement was a settled thing.

What else had he to do now but to return and complete his part of the bargain?
What else but that, and be a wretched, miserable, degraded man for the rest of his days; lower, viler, more contemptible, infinitely lower, even than his brother clerics at the office, whom in his pride he had so much despised?
He walked from Norfolk Street into the Strand, and there the world was still alive, though it was now nearly one o'clock.