A little old gentleman in a black velvet dressing-gown met us in the passage.

Dick instantly presented me: "Mr.
Frank Softly--Mr.Ishmael Pickup." The little old gentleman stared at me distrustfully.

I bowed to him with that inexorable politeness which I first learned under the instructive fist of Gentleman Jones, and which no force of adverse circumstances has ever availed to mitigate in after life.

Mr.Ishmael Pickup followed my lead.

There is not the least need to describe him--he was a Jew.
"Go into the front show-room, and look at the pictures, while I speak to Mr.Pickup," said Dick, familiarly throwing open a door, and pushing me into a kind of gallery beyond.