Condemned to inaction and a state of constant restlessness and
suspense, I rowed about in my boat, and waited, waited, waited, as
I best could.
There were states of the tide when, having been down the river, I
could not get back through the eddy-chafed arches and starlings of
old London Bridge; then, I left my boat at a wharf near the Custom
House, to be brought up afterwards to the Temple stairs. I was not
averse to doing this, as it served to make me and my boat a
commoner incident among the water-side people there. From this
slight occasion sprang two meetings that I have now to tell of.
One afternoon, late in the month of February, I came ashore at the
wharf at dusk. I had pulled down as far as Greenwich with the ebb
tide, and had turned with the tide. It had been a fine bright day,
but had become foggy as the sun dropped, and I had had to feel my
way back among the shipping, pretty carefully. Both in going and
returning, I had seen the signal in his window, All well.
As it was a raw evening, and I was cold, I thought I would comfort
myself with dinner at once; and as I had hours of dejection and
solitude before me if I went home to the Temple, I thought I would
afterwards go to the play. The theatre where Mr. Wopsle had achieved
his questionable triumph was in that water-side neighborhood (it
is nowhere now), and to that theatre I resolved to go.
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