Mr Utterson stepped out and touched him on the shoulder as he passed. `Mr Hyde, I think?'

Mr Hyde shrank back with a hissing intake of the breath. But his fear was only momentary; and though he did not look the lawyer in the face, he answered coolly enough: `That is my name. What do you want?'

`I see you are going in,' returned the lawyer. `I am an old friend of Dr Jekyll's - Mr Utterson, of Gaunt Street - you must have heard my name; and meeting you so conveniently, I thought you might admit me.'

`You will not find Dr Jekyll; he is from home,' replied Mr Hyde, blowing in the key. And then suddenly, but still without looking up, `How did you know me?' he asked.

`On your side,' said Mr Utterson, `will you do me a favour?'

`With pleasure,' replied the other. `What shall it be?' `Will you let me see your face?' asked the lawyer.

Mr Hyde appeared to hesitate; and then, as if upon some sudden reflection, fronted about with an air of defiance; and the pair stared at each other pretty fixedly for a few seconds. `Now I shall know you again,' said Mr Utterson. `It may be useful.'

`Yes,' returned Mr Hyde, `it is as well we have met; and à propos, you should have my address.' And he gave a number of a street in Soho.

`Good God!' thought Mr Utterson, `can he too have been thinking of the will?' But he kept his feelings to himself, and only grunted in acknowledgement of the address.

`And now,' said the other, `how did you know me?'

`By description,' was the reply.

`Whose description?'

`We have common friends,' said Mr Utterson.

`Common friends!' echoed Mr Hyde, a little hoarsely. `Who are they?'

`Jekyll, for instance,' said the lawyer.

`He never told you,' cried Mr Hyde, with a flush of anger. `I did not think you would have lied.'

`Come,' said Mr Utterson, `that is not fitting language.'

The other snarled aloud into a savage laugh; and the next moment, with extraordinary quickness, he had unlocked the door and disappeared into the house.

The lawyer stood awhile when Mr Hyde had left him, the picture of disquietude. Then he began slowly to mount the street, pausing every step or two, and putting his hand to his brow like a man in mental perplexity. The problem he was thus debating as he walked was one of a class that is rarely solved. Mr Hyde was pale and dwarfish; he gave an impression of deformity without any namable malformation, he had a displeasing smile, he had borne himself to the lawyer with a sort of murderous mixture of timidity and boldness, and he spoke with a husky whispering and somewhat broken voice, - all these were points against him; but not all of these together could explain the hitherto unknown disgust, loathing and fear with which Mr Utterson regarded him.

`There must be something else,' said the perplexed gentleman. `There is something more, if I could find a name for it. God bless me, the man seems hardly human! Something troglodytic, shall we say? or can it be the old story of Dr Fell? or is it the mere radiance of a foul soul that thus transpires through,