About
once a fortnight Whibley would drop round on me, in a friendly way,
to tell me that I was to beware of a man who lived in a street
beginning with a "C," or to inform me that if I would go to a town
on the coast where there were three churches I should meet someone
who would do me an irreparable injury, and, that I did not rush off
then and there in search of that town he regarded as flying in the
face of Providence.
In its passion for poking its ghostly nose into other people's
affairs it reminded me of my earthly friend Poppleton. Nothing
pleased it better than being appealed to for aid and advice, and
Whibley, who was a perfect slave to it, would hunt half over the
parish for people in trouble and bring them to it.
It would direct ladies, eager for divorce court evidence, to go to
the third house from the corner of the fifth street, past such and
such a church or public-house (it never would give a plain,
straightforward address), and ring the bottom bell but one twice.
They would thank it effusively, and next morning would start to
find the fifth street past the church, and would ring the bottom
bell but one of the third house from the corner twice, and a man in
his shirt sleeves would come to the door and ask them what they
wanted.
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