midday
-- WORDSWORTH : _ Excursion _ , B. IV . Deronda came out of the narrow house at Chelsea in a frame of mind that made him long for some good bodily exercise to carry off what he was himself inclined to call the fumes of his temper . He was going toward the city , and the sight of the Chelsea Stairs with the waiting boats at once determined him to avoid the irritating inaction of being driven in a cab , by calling a wherry and taking an oar . His errand was to go to Ram 's book-shop , where he had yesterday arrived too late for Mordecai 's midday watch , and had been told that he invariably came there again between five and six . Some further acquaintance with this remarkable inmate of the Cohens was particularly desired by Deronda as a preliminary to redeeming his ring : he wished that their conversation should not again end speedily with that drop of Mordecai 's interest which was like the removal of a drawbridge , and threatened to shut out any easy communication in future . As he got warmed with the use of the oar , fixing his mind on the errand before him and the ends he wanted to achieve on Mirah 's account , he experienced , as was wont with him , a quick change of mental light , shifting his point of view to that of the person whom he had been thinking of hitherto chiefly as serviceable to his own purposes , and was inclined to taunt himself with being not much better than an enlisting sergeant , who never troubles himself with the drama that brings him the needful recruits . `` I suppose if I got from this man the information I am most anxious about , '' thought Deronda , `` I should be contented enough if he felt no disposition to tell me more of himself , or why he seemed to have some expectation from me which was disappointed .