Page 302 - bleak-house

other until we had passed on, as if he were tormented by
an inclination to enter upon some secret subject which he
could not make up his mind to approach. I cannot imag-
ine a countenance and manner more singularly expressive
of caution and indecision, and a perpetual impulse to do
something he could not resolve to venture on, than Mr.
Krook’s was that day. His watchfulness of my guardian was
incessant. He rarely removed his eyes from his face. If he
went on beside him, he observed him with the slyness of an
old white fox. If he went before, he looked back. When we
stood still, he got opposite to him, and drawing his hand
across and across his open mouth with a curious expression
of a sense of power, and turning up his eyes, and lowering
his grey eyebrows until they appeared to be shut, seemed to
scan every lineament of his face.
At last, having been (always attended by the cat) all over
the house and having seen the whole stock of miscellaneous
lumber, which was certainly curious, we came into the back
part of the shop. Here on the head of an empty barrel stood
on end were an ink-bottle, some old stumps of pens, and
some dirty playbills; and against the wall were pasted sev-
eral large printed alphabets in several plain hands.
‘What are you doing here?’ asked my guardian.
‘Trying to learn myself to read and write,’ said Krook.
‘And how do you get on?’
‘Slow. Bad,’ returned the old man impatiently. ‘It’s hard
at my time of life.’
‘It would be easier to be taught by some one,’ said my
guardian.

302 Bleak House