I used to come back on the Monday wondering that Derrick didn't cut his throat, and realising that, after all, it was something to be a free agent, and to have comfortable rooms in Montague Street, with no old bear of a drunkard to disturb my peace.

And then a sort of admiration sprang up in my heart, and the cynicism bred of melancholy broodings over solitary pipes was less rampant than usual.
It was, I think, early in the new year that I met Lawrence Vaughan in Bath.

He was not staying at Gay Street, so I could still have the vacant room next to Derrick's.

Lawrence put up at the York House Hotel.
"For you know," he informed me, "I really can't stand the governor for more than an hour or two at a time." "Derrick manages to do it," I said.
"Oh, Derrick, yes," he replied, "it's his metier, and he is well accustomed to the life.

Besides, you know, he is such a dreamy, quiet sort of fellow; he lives all the time in a world of his own creation, and bears the discomforts of this world with great philosophy.