So he spurred away with more coolness, though not less regret than another man, to throw what light he could upon the subject of the inquest which was to sit upon the body of poor Charles Nutter.
The little doctor, on his way to Ringsend, without the necessity of diverging to the right or left, drew bridle at the door of Mr.Luke Gamble, on the Blind Quay, attorney to the late Charles Nutter, and jumping to the ground, delivered a rattling summons thereupon.
It was a dusty, dreary, wainscoted old house--indeed, two old houses intermarried--with doors broken through the partition walls--the floors not all of a level--joined by steps up and down--and having three great staircases, that made it confusing.

Through the windows it was not easy to see, such a fantastic mapping of thick dust and dirt coated the glass.
Luke Gamble, like the house, had seen better days.

It was not his fault; but an absconding partner had well nigh been his ruin: and, though he paid their liabilities, it was with a strain, and left him a poor man, shattered his connexion, and made the house too large by a great deal for his business.
Doctor Toole came into the clerk's room, and was ushered by one of these gentlemen through an empty chamber into the attorney's sanctum.

Up two steps stumbled the physician, cursing the house for a place where a gentleman was so much more likely to break his neck than his fast, and found old Gamble in his velvet cap and dressing-gown, in conference with a hard-faced, pale, and pock-marked elderly man, squinting unpleasantly under a black wig, who was narrating something slowly, and with effort, like a man whose memory is labouring to give up its dead, while the attorney, with his spectacles on his nose, was making notes.

The speaker ceased abruptly, and turned his pallid visage and jealous, oblique eyes on the intruder.
Luke Gamble looked embarrassed, and shot one devilish angry glance at his clerk, and then made Doctor Toole very welcome.
When Toole had ended his narrative, and the attorney read the notices through, Mr.Gamble's countenance brightened, and darkened and brightened again, and with a very significant look, he said to the pale, unpleasant face, pitted with small-pox-- 'M.