The effort of remembering that he wanted to speak to me was, but
too evidently, the only effort that his enfeebled memory was now able to
achieve.
Just as I reached the bottom of the stairs, and had turned a corner on
my way to the outer hall, a door opened softly somewhere on the ground
floor of the house, and a gentle voice said behind me:--
"I am afraid, sir, you find Mr. Candy sadly changed?"
I turned round, and found myself face to face with Ezra Jennings.
CHAPTER IX
The doctor's pretty housemaid stood waiting for me, with the street door
open in her hand. Pouring brightly into the hall, the morning light fell
full on the face of Mr. Candy's assistant when I turned, and looked at
him.
It was impossible to dispute Betteredge's assertion that the appearance
of Ezra Jennings, speaking from a popular point of view, was against
him. His gipsy-complexion, his fleshless cheeks, his gaunt facial bones,
his dreamy eyes, his extraordinary parti-coloured hair, the puzzling
contradiction between his face and figure which made him look old and
young both together--were all more or less calculated to produce an
unfavourable impression of him on a stranger's mind.
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