In this state of depression, into which I
subsided when I first began to revolve what could
I ever say if He—the unknown—was to appear
in the Coffee Room and demand reparation, I
one forenoon in this last November received a
turn that appeared to be given me by the finger
of Fate and Conscience, hand in hand. I was
alone in the Coffee Room and had just poked
the fire into a blaze, and was standing with my
back to it, trying whether heat would penetrate
with soothing influence to the Voice within, when
a young man in a cap, of an intelligent
countenance though requiring his hair cut, stood
before me.

"Mr. Christopher, the Head Waiter?"

"The same."

The young man shook his hair out of his
vision—which it impeded—took a packet from
his breast, and, handing it over to me, said, with
his eye (or did I dream?) fixed with a lambent
meaning on me, "THE PROOFS."

Although I smelt my coat-tails singeing at the
fire, I had not the power to withdraw them. The
young man put the packet in my faltering grasp,
and repeated—let me do him the justice to add,
with civility:

"THE PROOFS. A. Y. R."

With those words he departed.

A. Y. R.? And You Remember. Was that
his meaning? At Your Risk. Were the letters
short for that reminder? Anticipate Your
Retribution. Did they stand for that warning?
Outdacious Youth Repent? But no; for that, a
O was happily wanting, and the vowel here was
a A.

I opened the packet and found that its contents
were the foregoing writings printed, just
as the reader (may I add the discerning reader?)
peruses them. In vain was the reassuring
whisper—A. Y. R., All the Year Round—it
could not cancel the Proofs. Too appropriate
name. The Proofs of my having sold the
Writings.

My wretchedness daily increased. I had not
thought of the risk I ran, and the defying
publicity I put my head into, until all was done,
and all was in print. Give up the money to be
off the bargain and prevent the publication, I
could not. My family was down in the world,
Christmas was coming on, a brother in the
hospital and a sister in the rheumatics could not
be entirely neglected. And it was not only ins
in the family that had told on the resources of
one unaided Waitering; outs were not wanting.
A brother out of a situation, and another brother
out of money to meet an acceptance, and another
brother out of his mind, and another brother out
at New York (not the same, though it might
appear so), had really and truly brought me to a
stand till I could turn myself round. I got
worse and worse in my meditations, constantly
reflecting "The Proofs," and reflecting that
when Christmas drew nearer, and the Proofs
were published, there could be no safety from
hour to hour but that He might confront me in
the Coffee Room, and in the face of day and
his country demand his rights.

The impressive and unlooked-for catastrophe
towards which I dimly pointed the reader (shall
I add, the highly intellectual reader?) in my
first remarks, now rapidly approaches.

It was November still, but the last echoes of
the Guy-Foxes had long ceased to reverberate.
We was slack—several joints under our average
mark, and wine of course proportionate. So slack
had we become at last, that Beds Nos. 26, 27, 28,
and 31 having took their six o'clock dinners and
dozed over their respective pints, had drove away
in their respective Hansoms for their respective
Night Mail-Trains, and left us empty.

I had took the evening paper to No. 6 table—
which is warm and most to be preferred—and
lost in the all-absorbing topics of the day, had
dropped into a slumber. I was recalled to
consciousness by the well-known intimation,
"Waiter!" and replying "Sir!" found a gentleman
standing at No. 4 table. The reader (shall
I add, the observant reader?) will please to
notice the locality of the gentleman—at No. 4
table.

He had one of the new-fangled uncollapsable
bags in his hand (which I am against, for I don't
see why you shouldn't collapse, while you are
about it, as your fathers collapsed before you),
and he said:

"I want to dine, waiter. I shall sleep here
tonight."

"Very good, sir. What will you take for
dinner, sir?"

"Soup, bit of codfish, oyster sauce, and the
joint."

"Thank you, sir."

I rang the chambermaid's bell; and Mrs.
Pratchett marched in, according to custom,
demurely carrying a lighted flat candle before her,
as if she was one of a long public procession, all
the other members of which was invisible.

In the mean while the gentleman had gone up
to the mantelpiece, right in front of the fire,
and had laid his forehead against the mantelpiece
(which it is a low one, and brought him
into the attitude of leap-frog), and had heaved
a tremenjous sigh. His hair was long and
lightish; and when he laid his forehead against
the mantelpiece, his hair all fell in a dusty fluff
together, over his eyes; and when he now turned
round and lifted up his head again, it all fell in a
dusty fluff together, over his ears. This give
him a wild appearance, similar to a blasted
heath.

"Oh! The chambermaid. Ah!" He was
turning something in his mind. "To be sure.
Yes. I won't go up-stairs now, if you will
take my bag. It will be enough for the
present to know my number.—Can you give me
24 B?"

(O Conscience, what a Adder art thou!)

Mrs. Pratchett allotted him the room, and took
his bag to it. He then went back before the
fire, and fell a biting his nails.

"Waiter!" biting between the words, "give
me," bite, "pen and paper; and in five minutes,"
bite, "let me have, if you please," bite, "a,"
bite, "Messenger."