Mr Nadgett made a mysterious change about this time in his mysterious
life: for whereas he had, until now, been first seen every morning
coming down Cornhill, so exactly like the Nadgett of the day before
as to occasion a popular belief that he never went to bed or took his
clothes off, he was now first seen in Holborn, coming out of Kingsgate
Street; and it was soon discovered that he actually went every morning
to a barber's shop in that street to get shaved; and that the barber's
name was Sweedlepipe. He seemed to make appointments with the man who
never came, to meet him at this barber's; for he would frequently take
long spells of waiting in the shop, and would ask for pen and ink, and
pull out his pocket-book, and be very busy over it for an hour at a
time. Mrs Gamp and Mr Sweedlepipe had many deep discoursings on the
subject of this mysterious customer; but they usually agreed that he had
speculated too much and was keeping out of the way.
He must have appointed the man who never kept his word, to meet him at
another new place too; for one day he was found, for the first time,
by the waiter at the Mourning Coach-Horse, the House-of-call for
Undertakers, down in the City there, making figures with a pipe-stem in
the sawdust of a clean spittoon; and declining to call for anything, on
the ground of expecting a gentleman presently.
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