Tom only stopped to hear that, and bolted back and told his master, who was terribly frightened, and said he should be hanged, and how was he to escape? The young fellow who was with him said, “You must hide till the coast’s clear. Where can you hide? They’ll think you’ve run away.”
So they thought it out, and Curnock remembered that in his barn there was a trapdoor which opened on to a kind of cellar in the ground. So he went to the barn, and opened the trap, and got in, and they strewed things about over the top, so that the trap would be hidden. It was agreed that Tom Gabbitas was to take him food and drink there twice a day, which he could do, because he could go into the barn about his work without suspicion.
The other young man went home quietly, saying he was safe, as nobody but Gabbitas and Curnock knew he was in it, and they wouldn’t blab.
The people and the police came to the farm that night, but Tom said his master had gone out and hadn’t come in.The farm was searched and watched all night and all the next day, and then everybody said that Ned Curnock had got clear away. Rewards were offered, and the description of Curnock was sent all over England; but, of course, he was never found, and at last he was forgotten.
But something awful had happened in the meantime. Tom took his master food all right the first day, going cautiously into the barn, and, when nobody was about, lifting the trap. His master would put his head up then, and take the food, and ask, “What news?” The third night, when everybody was sure Curnock had gone, the other young fellow came to see about some things of his Curnock had bought, he said, and hadn’t settled for; but, of course, it was to get into the barn and see Curnock.
He went, and Tom took the dark lantern and went first, and when they were in they lifted the trap. Curnock was tired of being there, and he said escape was hopeless, and he should go and give himself up and make a clean breast of it.
“No,” said the other fellow, “don’t do that; you shall escape, and get clean away this very night. I’ll come to you at midnight and tell you how.”
Then Tom and this young fellow went back into the house, where there was only an old female servant—Curnock being a bachelor—and the young fellow gave Tom money, and told him he’d better rise early in the morning and walk to the nearest town, and take the stage-coach and go to London, and wait for his master at a place he was told of.
Tom went, and three days after, instead of his master, the young fellow came. “It’s all right, Tom,” he said; “Mr Curnock’s got clear away and gone to America. I’m going to buy his farm and send the money out to him.”
“What am I going to do?” said Tom.
“Oh, you can come back, and work on my farm. There’s always a job for you there, and I’ll give you and your wife a cottage on my place.”
Tom wondered then why he had been sent to London; but he supposed they had altered their plans afterwards, as he was to have met his master in London and helped him in some way.
When he got back, all his things had been moved to the cottage at the other farm, which was three miles away, and he worked on that farm for thirty years. And his new master carried on both; but he never went to the old farm again.
All these years, whenever anybody spoke of Ned Curnock, it was always said he’d got away to America, and was living there.
After thirty years, the other farmer, who had lived a bachelor all his life, died, and then the farm was sold again. A stranger took it, and when he came he began a lot of alteration. Among other places altered was the barn, which was pulled down for a new building to be put up in its place. And when they cleared it out, and began pulling it down, they came on the trapdoor.
The flooring was taken up, of course, and underneath—in the cellar—was found the skeleton of a man.
It was the skeleton of Ned Curnock.
For thirty years the dead man had been there, and it was proved that he had been murdered. He was identified by many things—among others by a peculiar ring, which was on the bony finger still, the hands having been clutched together in death. How they proved he had been murdered was by the skull. The doctor proved he had been struck on the head with a chopper, which had split the skull open.
Tom Gabbitas came forward then, and told all he knew; and there is no doubt Ned Curnock was murdered the night Tom went away. His accomplice went to the trap, and, instead of helping his friend to escape, killed him as he put his head out, fearing that he would be caught if he went away, and would tell the truth, and so get his accomplice hanged as well.
Tom Gabbitas was charged with being an accessory after the fact of the parson’s murder—that’s how Mr. Wilkins puts it, I think—but it was so long ago, and Tom was so respected by everybody, and it was proved that he’d thought the parson was accidentally killed in a struggle and no murder was meant, and after he’d been remanded a lot of times he was sentenced to a short imprisonment, which was to date from the time he waslocked up; so he was set free and came back to the village, where he was quite a hero and had to tell the story to everybody, and to lots of people who weren’t born when it all happened.
When the story was done I looked at old Gaffer Gabbitas, aged eighty-nine, sitting there, and it seemed so strange to be looking at a man who’d been mixed up in two murders and could talk of them now as calmly and as quietly as if they were nothing at all.
When you get very old you are like that, I’m told. I asked the Gaffer a lot of questions, and he answered me quite nicely, and was as clear about everything as if it was yesterday.
But fancy him living in the village for thirty years, and never suspecting that the master he thought was in America was lying in his own barn, murdered, all that time, and him being servant to the man who was his murderer!
And the man who did the murder! Fancy him living in the place, too, and growing old there, with the body of his victim on his premises, and going about his business quietly, and living his life like everybody else! I wonder if he ever passed that barn at night! I wonder if he didn’t often start out of his sleep and think that all was going to be found out. The more you think of these things, the more wonderful they are. What awful secrets some of the easy-going, comfortable-looking people we meet every day must be carrying about locked up in their breasts, hidden from everybody, just as Ned Curnock’s dead body lay hidden away for thirty years in his own barn.
Mr. Wilkins, when it was time to go, took the Gaffer’s arm, and said he’d see him to his door, and the old gentleman shook hands with me, and said he should come and see us again. He’d had many a glass in the old place when it was only a little inn, he said; and as he was going out he said, “Wonderful changes—wonderful changes in the old place, surely.”
Mr. Wilkins came back a minute, and he whispered to me, “Well, are you glad I brought old Gaffer Gabbitas to see you?”
“Yes,” I said; “certainly. His story is part of the story of the place. But it’s very dreadful. I shall dream of skeletons in a barn all night long.”
And so I did, and I woke up with a scream, lying on my back, and Harry said, “Good heavens! what’s the matter?”
“Oh, it’s the skeleton in the barn!” I said. I knew I should dream of it, and I didn’t go to sleep again for an hour, but kept thinking of old Gaffer Gabbitas and the two murders he’d been mixed up in and seemed none the worse for.
Two murders, and both in our village! Thank goodness they were such a long time ago. Murders aren’t the sort of things you care to be too common in a place you’ve got to live in. Harry said he should go and have a look at Curnock’s farm, as it was still called, in the morning, and he asked me if I’d come with him.
I said, “Oh, please talk of something else, or not a wink shall I have this night.” I couldn’t get to sleep. I counted sheep, but there was a skeleton among them. I watched the waving corn, and a skeleton looked at me out of the middle of it. I looked at the sea-waves rolling along, but a skeleton floated——
* * * * *
“Oh, Harry, let me send for a doctor!”
“Nonsense!”
“It isn’t nonsense. Why, your hands are cut dreadfully—it’s most dangerous—it turns to lock-jaw sometimes! ‘Only a scratch?’ It’s a cut—a deep, deep, deep cut. Oh, how could you be so careless? I told you you’d burst a bottle some day—driving the corks in like that. You should always look to see they’re not too full. It’s a mercy you weren’t killed on the spot.”
Thefirst year that we had the ‘Stretford Arms’ was one of great anxiety to us, as you may be sure. All our capital was invested in the business, and not only all our capital, but a good deal of money that Harry’s friends had lent him to help us to take it. If things had gone wrong with us it would have been dreadful, and I don’t know what we should have done.
It was a great relief to both our minds when, from the first, we found that we had a property which, with care and good management, could be improved. Some properties, especially in our trade, go all the other way, and nothing will save them. There are so many things that will take the business from an hotel, and when they happen no power on earth can stop your going down. You may spend your money, you may advertise, you may work yourself to the bone, but down, down, down you go, and the longer you cling to the hope of things taking a turn, the more money you lose.
Of course, we couldn’t tell what would happen when we took the ‘Stretford Arms,’ and my want of experience in the business made me very nervous. But from the first we began to get confidence, and that is a wonderful thing. When you can see things are going right, you can do a lot that you can’t do when things are wavering or going wrong.
But, though we very soon got confidence, and felt comfortable in our minds, we were just as careful as ever, and we determined not to leave anything to chance. Wewere very economical ourselves, and we only laid out money on the place a little at the time, knowing how true the old proverb is which says, “Learn to walk before you try to run.”
We didn’t have more servants than we could help, and Harry and I worked like niggers, as the saying is; though Harry, who had seen niggers at work, says it isn’t a good one, for some niggers do just as much as you make them do, and not a bit more.
But after the first year in the ‘Stretford Arms,’ I couldn’t do so much as I had done, because I had my dear little baby boy to think about, and I wasn’t quite so well and strong for a little time after that as I had been before, and Harry wouldn’t let me even do what I might have done.
He said my health was far more precious to him than anything else in the world, and that we’d much better pay a few pounds a year extra in wages than a lot of money in doctor’s bills. So after baby was born we had a nurse for him, and another housemaid, and a few months after that, when business kept on improving, and we found that we were getting a nice little hotel connection, we took on an odd man. His duties were to clean the boots, to carry the luggage up and down, to look after the pony, and, when we weren’t busy, he filled up his time with odd jobs and in the garden.
We were very glad we had him, for a nicer, civiller, more obliging fellow I never met with. It was quite a pleasure to ask him to do anything, because you saw at once that you had pleased him by giving him a chance of showing how useful he could be. There aren’t many of that sort about, so that we were lucky to get him.
He came to us in this way. We had been talking about having an odd man, and getting rid of the boy who looked after the pony and did the boots, etc., because the boy was the plague of our lives, and we never knew what he was going to be up to next. He was a boy named Dick, that we took on to oblige Mr. Wilkins, who recommended him as a smart boy; and there was another reason, which was that his grandmother, a very decent old woman, who lived in the village, couldn’t afford to keep him at home, andwanted him out somewhere where he could sleep on the premises.
We took him, and he certainly was smart. He had been educated at a good charity school (as I was myself, so I’ve nothing to say against that), but, unfortunately, he’d learnt to read and write and nothing very much else. He couldn’t cipher, and his writing was very bad, and his spelling not over grand. So he couldn’t be got into an office, and his poor old grandmother was worrying herself into the grave about what to do for him, when Mr. Wilkins mentioned him to Harry, and Harry, who’d just bought our pony, took him.
He was a nice-looking lad, and always very respectful, and spoke nicely, though using words above his station and in the wrong place; but there was no reliance to be placed upon him, and he forgot things he was told to do over and over again.
For a long time we couldn’t make out what made him so slow over his work, and so careless; but we found it out at last. He was a great reader, and took in a lot of trash, written for boys, about pirates and highwaymen, and all that sort of thing, and his head was filled with romantic nonsense instead of thinking about his work.
Harry found it out first one day going into the stables, when nobody had seen the boy for an hour, and finding him sitting down comfortably in one of the stalls smoking the end of a cigar, and reading “The Boy Highwayman.”
Harry boxed his ears for smoking in the stables, and was so mad with him he told him to go; but the boy began to cry, and Harry said he would give him another chance, but read him an awful lecture, saying he might burn us all down in our beds, and telling him if he read such rubbish he would come to be hanged.
He went on all right for a little while after that, though his work was not done properly; but one day our nursemaid, Lucy Jones, a nice, well-behaved girl of eighteen, came to me and asked me if she could speak to me about a private matter.
I said “Yes,” and then she said she wanted to show me a letter which she had found inside one of her boots when she went to put it on.
I took the letter and read it, and it made my blood run cold. This is the letter, which I kept as a curiosity:—
My darling Miss Jones,“This comes hoping that you will dain to smile on my suit. I have long love you from a fur. Will you elope with me to forring climbs, where we may live happy. You shall have silks and sattings and jewls, and be the envy of all my dashing companons. I shall be verry proud of you at the hed of my bord, when it is spred with the feest, and all my brave, dare-devill fellowes shall tost you as their cheifs inamerato. This is French, but it means a bride. If you will fly with me name your own time. It must be nite, and I will have the hosses redy. Bring all your jewls and money. If we are follered I am prepaired to die in your defense; but have no fere. The man does not brethe the God’s air that is to take his pray from“Dashing Dick.“If you accep my hoffer, deer Miss Jones, put your answer in your boots when you put them out to be clened. I will make you a Quene. Don’t delay, as my brave Band is waiting for their horders.”
My darling Miss Jones,
“This comes hoping that you will dain to smile on my suit. I have long love you from a fur. Will you elope with me to forring climbs, where we may live happy. You shall have silks and sattings and jewls, and be the envy of all my dashing companons. I shall be verry proud of you at the hed of my bord, when it is spred with the feest, and all my brave, dare-devill fellowes shall tost you as their cheifs inamerato. This is French, but it means a bride. If you will fly with me name your own time. It must be nite, and I will have the hosses redy. Bring all your jewls and money. If we are follered I am prepaired to die in your defense; but have no fere. The man does not brethe the God’s air that is to take his pray from
“Dashing Dick.
“If you accep my hoffer, deer Miss Jones, put your answer in your boots when you put them out to be clened. I will make you a Quene. Don’t delay, as my brave Band is waiting for their horders.”
At first the letter made me so indignant I couldn’t laugh, though it was so ridiculous. I guessed at once who it was had sent it to her by the writing, and its coming in her boots, and the answer to be put back in her boots.
The girl was quite indignant. “I never heard such impudence in my life, ma’am!” she said. “And a bit of a boy like that, too!”
“You’ve never given him any encouragement, I suppose!” I said.
“Never, ma’am. The only time he ever spoke to me on such a subject was when he asked me to walk out with him on Sunday, and then I said he’d better go home and read to his grandmother. Encouragement! I hope I know myself better, ma’am, than to keep company with the likes of him. Why, he’s ever so much younger than me, ma’am.”
“I only asked, Lucy,” I said. “I didn’t suppose youhadencouraged him.”
I didn’t, because I knew Lucy had set her cap, so to speak, at a young fellow in the village—a handsome young fellow, too—with a little black moustache, that was quite unique in the neighbourhood; but I asked her, because, having been in service, I know how girls will sometimes encourage forward lads—pages, for instance—being fond of larking, and saying, “Oh, there’s no harm; he’s only a boy.” So I thought I’d just ask Lucy the question.
I saw by her style she was quite innocent in the matter; so I told her to leave the letter with me, and I would speak to my husband about it, and he would decide what should be done.
When I showed the letter to Harry he couldn’t help laughing, though he was very cross. “The young varmint!” he said.
“What are you going to do?” I said. “You must get rid of the boy. He isn’t safe to be about the place with notions like that in his head. I’m very sorry for his poor old grandmother; but he’ll come to a bad end soon, and I don’t want him to come to it here.”
“Oh, I shall give him the sack,” said Harry; “but I’m sorry for him, because it’s the trash he’s been reading that has put this stuff into his head.”
After dinner, Harry sent for Master Dick, and, when the young gentleman came in, showed him the letter, and asked him what he meant by writing such wickedness to our nursemaid.
The boy never changed colour a moment. He looked straight at Harry, and said, “Did she show it to you, sir?”
“She showed it to Mrs. Beckett,” said Harry.
“Then it was very unladylike of her,” said the boy, “and she’s a mean sneak. No man likes his love-letters to be shown about.”
“Love-letters, you young rascal!” cried Harry; “what business have you putting your love-letters in a respectable young woman’s boots? And, besides, this isn’t a love-letter, it’s asking the girl to elope, and it’s full of wickedness about jewels, and a band of daring fellows. What do you mean by it, sir?”
Master Dick looked at Harry a minute. Then he struck an attitude.
“What I do after I’ve left your service, sir, is my own business, isn’t it?”
“No, it isn’t,” said Harry; “it’s mine, because you’re placed with me by your grandmother, and it’s my duty to see that you don’t do anything to disgrace yourself if I can help it. Whose horses are you going to have ready, pray? And where are you going to get the silks and satins and jewels from? A nice idea, indeed! I’ve a good mind to send for a policeman.”
The boy turned very red at that, and his manner made Harry think he was frightened that something might be found out.
So, instead of dismissing the boy there and then, he gave him a good talking to, and said he should decide what was to be done with him afterwards.
Then Harry came to me, and said, “Mary Jane, there’s something wrong with that boy. I’m afraid he’s been up to no good.”
“Of course he hasn’t,” I said. “He certainly wasn’t up to any good when he wrote that wicked letter to Lucy.”
“It isn’t that only I’m thinking of. I’m afraid, putting two and two together, that he’s been making ready to run away, and that perhaps he’s got what doesn’t belong to him.”
“You don’t mean you think he’s been stealing?”
“Yes, I do,” said Harry; “but the thing is, how am I to make sure? I’ll go and make inquiries.”
Harry went and asked the other servants, and the people about the place, a few questions, and at last he found out that Master Dick had been seen going pretty often into a shed where we kept some empty cases and lumber. So Harry went to it quietly, and turned it thoroughly over, and then he came on a box hidden away that aroused his suspicions. He broke the box open, and inside it he found an old pistol and a belt, and a pair of his old sea-boots, that must have been taken from our spare room upstairs, and an old red flannel shirt, and a lot of penny numbers about boy pirates and highwaymen, and right at the bottom of the box two pairs of my best stockings and some old bows of ribbons, and one or twotrifles like that, which the young rascal had evidently taken at different times when he had been at work about the house.
Harry came and told me, and said he supposed the pistol and the belt, and the red shirt, and the boots were for the young gentleman to dress himself up in when he took to the road or to the sea, whichever it was to be, and my stockings and the bits of ribbons were the satins and jewels, etc., which he was going to present to Lucy, if she consented to elope with him, and be the bride of the chief of the “band of daring fellows,” which was himself, viz. Dashing Dick.
“Oh, Harry!” I said, “how shocking! Who would believe that a boy, decently brought up, could be so wicked!”
Of course, after we found he had taken things, we couldn’t keep him, even if we had looked over that letter to our nursemaid, and so Harry went to his grandmother and told her that our place didn’t suit her boy, as he had too much liberty, and then he told her that the boy had taken one or two little things, and he must be punished. We shouldn’t, of course, give him into custody and ruin him for life for my stockings and Harry’s boots, but that sort of thing, if not checked in time, would go on till it became wholesale robbery.
The old lady was very much upset, and said, what could she do, as the boy was quite beyond her control. So Harry said he would try and think, but he should give the boy notice, and send him home, as he couldn’t have him about the place. If he overlooked it, it would be an encouragement to the boy to go on in his evil courses.
That evening, after his work was done, my young gentleman was told he wouldn’t be wanted any more, and Harry made him come into the kitchen and unpack his box before all the servants to try and make him ashamed of himself. The other servants laughed at the pistol and the red shirt, but Harry told them it was no laughing matter, as the young lad would come to ruin the way he was going on; and then he discharged him and gave him a most severe lecture, telling him to think himself lucky he wasn’t given into custody.
But the boy was very sullen and defiant, and though he didn’t say anything to Harry, as he was going he turned to Lucy, who was in the kitchen, and he said, “This is your doing, and you shall pay for it.” And he gave her such a glance with his eyes as he went out of the door that the girl came to me and said she was quite frightened.
“What nonsense, Lucy!” I said; “it’s only his brag. It’s something he’s picked up out of one of the wretched tales he has been reading.”
“I don’t know, ma’am,” answered Lucy; “it’s my belief that he’s off his head; and I’ve heard of boys doing dreadful things when they’re like that. I sha’n’t feel safe till he’s out of the place.”
I talked to the girl, and told her not to be a goose; but she quite made up her mind that the young imp meant to do her a mischief, for showing his letter to me and Harry.
* * * * *
That night, just as we were shutting up, a man from the village came with a message from Dick’s grandmother to say her boy had been home, put on his Sunday clothes, done all his things up in a bundle and started off, saying she would never see him again, and please what was she to do. Had we any idea where he was likely to be gone to?
Harry sent word back that he couldn’t say anything; but the best thing was to send up to the police-station, and they might hear something.
The next day, Lucy came to me as pale as death, and said, “Oh, ma’am, look at this,” and showed me a letter which had come for her that morning, and it was this—“You have betrade our captin; deth to informars!” and underneath it was a skull and two cross-bones and a coffin.
“I daren’t go out, ma’am,” she said; “I daren’t, indeed. He might be lurking about and jump out on me with a pistol. He used to be always telling stories in the kitchen about highwaymen and their stopping people on the road, and you may depend upon it, ma’am, that’s what he’s going to be now he’s run away. I shouldn’t be afraid of him, but if he’s got hold of a pistol there’s no knowing what might happen. And suppose, ma’am, hewas to meet me in the lane while I was out with baby, whatever should I do?”
This was a nice idea, and it made me nervous, too; for I had visions of Lucy fainting, or dropping my baby; or, perhaps, the pistol, if the young rascal had one, going off accidentally, and hitting my baby. So I made up my mind she shouldn’t take baby out, except into the garden, and just in front of the house.
I said to Harry, “It’s a nice thing if we are all to be kept in terror by a bit of a boy, who has read penny numbers, and wants to play at being a highwayman; and something must be done.” Harry said it was all nonsense—the boy was gone, and if hewashanging about the neighbourhood, where was he to get a pistol from? The one Harry had taken out of his box was an old worn-out thing, and wasn’t loaded, and he wouldn’t have the money to get another.
I said, “Oh, I don’t know; he might steal one. I’ve read in the papers about errand boys getting revolvers; and I shall never know a moment’s peace till I know where that wretched boy is. A nice thing, if my nurse goes out one day with baby, and gets shot by the young fiend.”
So Harry went up to the police-station, and they laid a trap to catch my lord. From something one of the policemen had heard, he believed that one of the boys of the village was in league with Dick, and knew where he was hiding. So Lucy was told to get hold of this boy, and tell him that she had thought it over and altered her mind, and she wanted to send a letter to Dick.
The boy was sharp. He said, “I don’t know where Dick is; but, if I see him, I’ll give it to him;” and he took the letter. The letter asked Dick to meet Lucy at nine o’clock the next night up by Giles’s farm, which is up at the top of a lonely road, about half a mile away from the village.
When the time came, instead of Lucy going, one of the policemen in plain clothes went up to the place, and hid behind a hedge. We heard all about it afterwards. After he had waited a little, he saw Master Dick come cautiously along, it being a nice light night, and when he was quiteclose, the policeman jumped out on him; but, before he could get hold of him, the young fiend had a revolver pointed at his head.
“Oh, it’s a trick, is it?” he said. “I thought it was, so I’ve come prepared.”
“Put that down, you young varmint!” yelled the policeman. “Do you hear? Put that down.”
He told us afterwards he felt very nervous; for that horrid boy pointed the revolver at him, with his finger on the trigger, and he was afraid every minute it might go off.
“Not me,” said the little wretch; “you’re at my mercy now.”
“If you don’t put that pistol down,” said the policeman, beginning to be all of a perspiration, “I’ll give you such a thrashing as you never had in your life.”
“Oh no, you won’t,” said the boy; “you come a step nearer to me, and I’ll blow your brains out.”
With that the policeman began to shout, because he saw he could do nothing. Being a married man, and the father of a family, he didn’t care to have a bullet in him.
But directly he began to shout, the boy called out, “You shout again, and I’ll shoot you dead,” and he put his finger on the trigger again, ready to pull it.
It was a terrible position for our policeman, and he didn’t know what to do. There was nobody about, and he was helpless. Of course he might have made a dash for the revolver; but, as he said, before he could get it, it might have gone off, and then, where would he have been?
The little wretch saw his advantage, and if he didn’t say, as cool as you please, “Now then, Jones” (it was the same policeman who woke us up about our door being open, the night of the burglary at The Hall),—“now then, Jones, take off your watch and chain, and throw them on the ground.”
“I sha’n’t,” said the policeman.
“Oh, very well; then I shall have to make you. I’ll count three, and if you haven’t put them down I’ll pull the trigger.”
“One!”
“Two!”
Poor Jones hesitated. It was ridiculous; but he was in mortal terror of that deadly weapon in a boy’s hands. So he took off his watch and chain and put them down.
“Now, all the money you’ve got in your pockets.”
Jones had drawn his week’s pay, and had a sovereign; but he wouldn’t say so.
“I haven’t got any money,” he said.
“Yes, you have.”
“No, I haven’t. Come, my boy, don’t make a fool of yourself. Put that pistol down and come with me.”
“Not likely! What do you take me for? Come, your money or your life!”
“I haven’t got any money, I tell you.”
“Take off your coat, then!”
“I sha’n’t!”
“Take off your coat, and throw it on the ground.”
“One!”
“Two!”
Again the pistol was pointed straight at Jones’s head. He looked round. It was a lonely place. The farm lay right back across the fields, and he daren’t shout, so he didn’t know what to do. He wished he had brought somebody with him; but it had been agreed he should go alone; because, if several people had gone, the boy’s suspicions would have been aroused, and he wouldn’t have come near enough to be caught perhaps.
“If I say ‘Three,’ I’ll shoot,” said the boy.
The policeman saw it was no use, so he took off his coat.
“Now, your waistcoat!”
Jones had to take off his waistcoat.
“Turn out the pockets!”
Jones turned out the pockets. There was only his pipe and his handkerchief in them.
“Now, turn out the trousers pockets.”
Poor Jones! The sovereign was in one trousers pocket. He turned them out; but kept the sovereign in his hand.
But Master Dick saw the trick.
“Drop what you’ve got in your hand!”
“One!”
“Two!”
Down went the sovereign on the road.
“Now! Right about turn. Quick march!”
“I sha’n’t.”
“If you don’t, I’ll shoot you.”
“You’ll be hanged.”
“I don’t care. I’ll die game.”
Wasn’t it awful? But it was the stuff he had read.
Poor Jones, who certainly is not a brave man, perhaps through having a wife and family, had to give it up as a bad job, turned round, and began to move slowly away.
As soon as he had got a little distance, he turned round, and saw Master Dick pick up the sovereign and the coat and waistcoat, and run away with them.
Jones turned round then, and shouted, and ran after him.
But directly he came close, Master Dick turned round with the revolver.
Jones hesitated.
“If you come a step nearer, I’ll fire,” shouted the boy.
Jones was just turning round to go away again, wondering whatever people would say if he came back into the village in his shirt-sleeves, when, suddenly, a man came along the road in the opposite direction, and before the boy knew what was up, his arms were seized from behind, and the pistol was forced out of his hand. It was Harry, who had gone up to the place to see if anything had happened, and who had seen the last part of the performance at a distance.
And when they had collared the boy, and Jones had put on his coat and waistcoat and got his sovereign back, and was walking Master Dick off to the police-station, Harry picked up the revolver, and looked at it.
It was empty!
Poor Jones went hot and cold, and begged Harry not to say anything about it, because it would make him look so small; and Harry, who would have burst out laughing if the boy hadn’t been there, promised not to tell; and he didn’t tell anybody except me. It must have looked ridiculous. I couldn’t help laughing at the idea myself, the policeman having to take off his clothes, frightened by a boy with an empty revolver.
Master Dick was taken before the magistrates, and tried for sending a threatening letter, and being in possession of a pistol, which, it was presumed, he had stolen from a farmer’s house in the neighbourhood, but nothing was said by Jones about the robbery from him, and the boy was wise enough to hold his tongue.
We all begged hard that he mightn’t be sent to prison, because of the evil company and the stain for life, so the magistrate sent him to a reformatory; and I suppose he is there now.
After that, our nursemaid felt relieved in her mind, poor girl, and so did I. It was not a nice idea to think that Dashing Dick, the boy highwayman, was waiting about for her with a pistol, every time she took baby out for a walk.
That was our first boy, and we didn’t have another. They’re more trouble than they’re worth, especially boys that can read, and get bitten with the romantic idea. It was all very well when they only ran away to sea; but now that they want to be burglars and pirates and highwaymen, it’s awful. You never know what dreadful things they’ll be up to. I knew a boy once that stole a hundred pounds, and bought six revolvers with the money, and stuck them all in his belt, loaded, and rode about the country on a horse, stopping old ladies coming home from market, and making them stand and deliver their purses, and all they had in their baskets, and was only caught through robbing an old lady who had a bottle of gin in her basket, which he drank, and got so drunk that he fell off his horse, and was found lying in the road, with his head cut open, and taken to the station.
I’m sure the trash that’s sold to boys and girls has a lot to answer for, for they read it at a time when their minds are influenced by it, and they haven’t the sense to see the wickedness of it and what it leads to. Lots of girls in service are ruined through the vile stuff they read making them discontented, and wanting to be I don’t know what.
It was after this awful boy of ours had turned out so badly that we determined to have a man, and it was then that Tom Dexter came to us. He is the odd man I wasgoing to speak about, when I left off to tell you the story of Dashing Dick, who wanted our nursemaid to elope with him, and who put his love-letters in her boots when he cleaned them. Tom Dexter was——
* * * * *
Oh, Harry, dear,doyou really think it? Money going out of the till! Whoever can it be?
I toldyou our odd man, Tom Dexter, came to us after that awful young scamp of a boy, who was going to be a highwayman, left.
Mr. Wilkins wanted to recommend a man he knew, who had been ostler up in London, but Harry said, “No, thank you, Wilkins, I’ll look out for one myself.” It was Mr. Wilkins who recommended us the boy highwayman, so we hadn’t much faith in his recommendations after that; though, of course, he meant well, and only wanted to do the boy’s grandmother a good turn.
I often think what a lot of bad turns you do sometimes to many people through trying to do one person a good turn. I’ve heard it said over and over again, “This comes of trying to do a man a good turn;” and it has always been about something unpleasant having happened.
It isn’t only that the person you try to do a good turn to brings trouble about, but the person himself or herself—for women are as bad as men in that respect—is generally ungrateful to you for what you’ve done, and very often “rounds” on you, as the common expression is, and tries to make out that you’ve done them, or I suppose I ought to say, to be grammatical, done him or her an injury.
“One good turn deserves another,” the proverb says; but my experience of doing anybody a good turn is, that it very seldom gets what it deserves; but generally the other thing.
I recollect one place, when I was in service, where themaster was a most kind-hearted man, and a friend came to him one day, and told him a tale about an old lady of very superior education, whose husband had died, and left her in such reduced circumstances that if she did not soon get something to do, she would have to go in the workhouse. The friend told my master that this old lady was a most excellent housekeeper, and used to looking after servants, because she had had her own, and she spoke and wrote French, and would be very useful that way, when there were children learning the language, to talk to them, and give them an accent.
“I knew her husband in business,” said the friend to master, “and you’d be doing a deserving woman a good turn, if you could find her a situation where her talents would be appreciated.”
It happened just at that time that my mistress had been saying to master that, her health being so delicate, and they having to travel about a good deal through it, the awful London winter being too much for her, they ought really to have a housekeeper—a person they could leave at home, to look after the house and the servants while they were away.
Master came home and told missus about the old lady (Mrs. Le Jeune, her name was), and missus said that that was just the very sort of person they wanted. Why not give her a trial?
“Just what I was thinking myself,” said master; “only, my dear, I thought I would consult you first.”
He knew by experience that if hedid’ntconsult missus first about everything, the fat would be in the fire; for she was one of those ladies who don’t believe that a man can do anything right, and master used to say sometimes he wondered she let him manage his own business. Of course he didn’t say that to us servants; but we used to hear when they were having arguments at dinner, which was pretty often.
It happened that just at the time master’s friend told him about Mrs. Le Jeune, we were going to have a grand ball, and missus, who had nervous headaches, was grumbling a good deal, and saying she couldn’t attend to everything because of her health; so master said it would be agood thing to have the old lady engaged at once, and then she could take a lot of trouble off missus’s shoulders.
But Mrs. Le Jeune, it seems, couldn’t come for some reason just then. What it was I don’t know, but at any rate she didn’t arrive until the afternoon of the day that the ball was to come off, and then she drove up in a four-wheeled cab, with a big box outside, about five o’clock.
Of course we were all sixes and sevens in the kitchen, because it was rather a small house, and we’d had to turn the best bedroom into a supper-room, and we’d had the upholsterer’s men about all day fitting it up, and draping and decorating the other rooms, and we were all topsy-turvy.
Mrs. Le Jeune, when I let her in, told me she was the new housekeeper, and asked to see missus. Missus had gone to lie down, so as to be right for the evening, and had given orders that she wasn’t to be disturbed for anybody till six o’clock, and I knew it would be bad for me if I went and woke her up; so I said to the old lady that missus was asleep; but I would show her to the room that was to be hers.
She was a queer-looking old lady, certainly. She was very short, and had a big bonnet on, and a long, black, foreign-looking cloak, and the longest nose I think I ever saw on a woman in my life, but she spoke like a lady certainly, but when she walked it almost made me laugh. It wasn’t a walk—it was a little skip, and when she moved about, it was for all the world as if she was dancing.
When I told her missus could not see her, she said, “Oh, it is very strange. Madam knew that I was coming, she should have arranged for my reception; but these City people have no manners. What’s your name, girl?”
“Mary Jane.”
“Mary Jane what?”
“Mary Jane Buffham.”
“‘Mary Jane, madam,’ you mean. Be good enough never to address me without calling me ‘madam.’”
“I beg your pardon, I didn’t know——”
“Did you hear what I said to you? I can’t allow you to speak to me as if I were your equal. I am a lady by birth and education. I have consented to take charge ofthis establishment in order that it may be properly conducted. I shall have to begin by teaching the servants how to behave themselves, evidently. Now, send some one to carry my box and conduct me to my apartment.”
“Yes, madam.”
I thought to myself, “Well, this is a nice old lady the master’s got hold of. She and missus won’t hit it off together long;” but, of course, it was no business of mine, so I asked one of the upholsterer’s men to give me a hand, and we carried her box upstairs, and I showed the old lady her room.
It was at the top of the house, next the servants’ bedrooms. Before she got up she was out of breath.
“Oh!” she said, “the attics! This is an insult to which I cannot submit. I am a lady; your master does not seem to be aware of the fact.”
I said I didn’t know anything about that. This was the room. So I got her box in, and gave her a candle, and left her muttering to herself, and taking off her bonnet in front of the looking-glass, and putting on a most wonderful cap, which she took out of the blue bonnet-box she had carried in her hand.
It was a big black cap, with cherries and red-currants and grapes sticking up all over it, and she looked so odd with it on, I had to go away, for fear I should burst out laughing, and hurt her feelings.
In about half an hour the old lady came downstairs into the kitchen, and everybody stared at her. It was most uncomfortable for us all to have a strange housekeeper, and such an eccentric one, walking in right in the middle of the preparations for a party, and beginning to missus it over us at once, and to talk like a duchess to us.
There were a lot of men about the kitchen, which made it worse, the upholsterer’s men, and the confectioner’s men, who were finishing off the things for supper, and the florist’s man with the plants and the flowers; and when that extraordinary old lady walked in, with her wonderful cap, and began to go on at us at once, and order us to do this and to do that, and to say we were a common lot, and not one of us knew how things ought to be done, I wondered what would be the end of it.
Before the company came, master went to have a look at the ball-room to see if everything was right, while missus was dressing, and there he found the old lady, who had gone upstairs, and was talking to the upholsterer’s men, who were finishing off, and telling them about how different things were when she was young, and the men were what is called “getting at her,” and encouraging her to talk.
When master went in, he was quite flabbergasted to see that old lady, in her wonderful cap, talking away, and saying this ought to be altered and that ought to be altered, and he didn’t know who she was at first, not recognizing her, till she came up and said—
“Good evening, sir; I’m just looking round to see if things are as they should be.”
“Oh, thank you,” said the master, hardly knowing what to say. “But I won’t trouble you to do that.”
“Oh, it’s no trouble,” she said; “I’m used to these affairs. If you’ll allow me to say it, sir, I don’t care for these artificial flowers about the place. They should be real.”
“Perhaps so,” said master; “but if you’ll kindly stay below and look after the servants, that is all you need do at present.”
He was anxious to get her out of the way before missus came down, because he guessed there would be trouble if missus found that old lady interfering and giving orders.
Missus was like that. She wouldn’t allow anybody to interfere with her, and she was very touchy on the point. Once she wanted to leave the house they were living in, and master put it in the agent’s hands and advertised it, and a gentleman and his wife came and looked at it several times, and everything was settled, and the deed or agreement, or whatever you call it, was to be signed, when, the day before, the lady who was going to take the house came to look over it again, and, going over the drawing-room with missus, she said, “I don’t think the colour of your curtains harmonizes with the paper. When I have the house, I shall have the curtains such and such a colour.”
That was enough for missus. She fired up directly, and said, “Oh, I’m sorry I didn’t consult you when I was putting my curtains up, but the colour suits me well enough, and you won’t alter it, because you won’t have the house!”
And then there were a few words, and the lady thought it best to retire.
That night, when the master came home, missus told him that she’d changed her mind, and she wouldn’t leave the house, and the agreement wasn’t to be signed.
“Oh, but, my dear,” said master, “everything is in the lawyer’s hands, and the place is as good as let. We can’t back out of it now.”
“You’ll have to back out of it,” said missus, “for I’m not going to let that woman have my house. She’s had the impudence to find fault with my taste, and to tell me what she’s going to do, and so she sha’n’t come in at all—so there now!”
And all master could say was no good. Missus declared she’d never go into another house alive, and, for the sake of peace and quietness, master had to refuse to sign the agreement at the last moment.
There was an awful row about it, I heard, and the other gentleman was very indignant, but it was no use. It was more than master dared do to sign the agreement, knowing what his wife was, and he couldn’t be made to, legally, so the other people had to give way after lawyer’s letters had passed.
And one day, when missus met the other lady in an omnibus going to Regent Street, she said to her, “My curtains are still blue, madam;” and the other lady called to the conductor to stop the omnibus, and she paid her fare, and got out.
Knowing how missus was, you may be sure the master was in a fright about the new housekeeper interfering. There would have been a nice scene, and, with the company beginning to arrive, he didn’t want that.
So he said to the waiter who was had in—the man we always had for dinner-parties and balls—“Waters,” he said, “for Heaven’s sake, keep that old woman downstairs. Do anything you like, only keep her downstairs.”
“All right; sir,” said Waters. And he got the old ladyto sit down in the breakfast-room, and keep guard over the provisions and the wine that were put out for the musicians’ supper, and made out it was very important she should be there, as she was to see that nobody came in and helped themselves.
She saw that nobody did, butshehelpedherself, and by the time the ball was in full swing the poor old lady had drunk so much wine, she was quite silly, and presently began to get lively, and, feeling lonely, I suppose, she went upstairs to stand in the hall and see the fun, though she had to lean up against the wall a good deal, the wine having got in her head.
I can’t tell you the trouble we had with her; but the end of it was she suddenly made her appearance in the ball-room with her cap very much on one side, and her face very flushed, and said, “Where’s Mr. —— [naming the master]? I have a communication to make to him.”
Master was horrified, and missus said, “Good gracious, who is this person?”
“Person, madam?” said the new housekeeper, “I’d have you to know I’m a real lady, which is more than you are.”
She made as if she would come across to missus, but she staggered, and fell into the arms of a very stout old gentleman, and put her arms round his neck, and began to have hysterics, and the waiter and master had to get her away by main force between them, the company almost bursting with laughter.
Master was in an awful rage, and said he’d turn her out there and then, but he couldn’t in her condition, and so two of us girls got her upstairs and put her to bed, and we thought she’d go off to sleep; but just as the company had sat down to supper in the bedroom, which had been turned into a supper-room, she appeared with a candle in her hand, like Lady Macbeth, and no cap on, only her bald head, looking the most extraordinary figure you ever saw in your life, and asked if there was a doctor present, as she felt very ill, and was liable to heart attacks if not taken in time.
Master and the waiter had to get her out again; but missus was in a terrible rage about it, and went on atmaster before all the company, saying he ought to be ashamed of himself, bringing such a creature into the house. And the rest of the party was quite spoilt, missus going off to bed herself in a temper, saying she had a bad headache, and master was so worried that he took a little more champagne than was good for him, and slipped up dancing, and hit his eye against a rout seat, and made it so bad he was disfigured for the rest of the evening, and went and hid himself down in the breakfast-room till the company were gone, which they soon were, as everything was upset, and it got awkward.
The next day when the old lady got up, about ten o’clock, she came down and ordered her breakfast, and was beginning to missus it again, and say what she was going to do, and how she was going to keep missus in her place, when master came and told her to be off. He gave her ten shillings, and ordered her box to be brought down and put on a cab, and told her she was a wicked old woman, and she ought to be ashamed of herself.
She refused to go at first, saying she was engaged for three months, and she wanted three months’ money. But she was got into the cab at last, and we were all very thankful to see the last of her.
But she sent master a County Court summons for three months’ wages, and he had no end of trouble with her. And through going and giving his friend, who had recommended her, a bit of his mind, they quarrelled, and never spoke again; and missus, having put herself in such a rage the night before, and gone to bed, got up cross the next morning, wild with herself and everybody else, and had an awful quarrel with her mother, who was very rich, and who reprimanded her for being so passionate, and it caused such a coldness between them that, when a year after the mother died, it was found she had altered her will, and left all her money to charitable institutions, and master reckoned that he was twenty thousand pounds out through doing a friend a good turn in giving that old lady a job, besides all the worry and annoyance and the unpleasantness that had come of it.
It was writing about Mr. Wilkins and his doing the boy-highwayman’s grandmother a good turn that put thisstory into my head; but, of course, it happened while I was in service, and has nothing to do with the ‘Stretford Arms.’
Mr. Wilkins was very sorry, I know, and we didn’t blame him; but we weren’t going to let him do anybody else a good turn at our expense. So Harry looked out for man, and having heard of one who was in want of a job, named Tom Dexter, and liking his manner, and what he had heard about him, he took him on, and a better servant we never had.
Tom was about fifty, a fine, burly fellow; but his hair was quite grey, and his face wrinkled. It was trouble, as we found out afterwards, that had given him such an old look.
Tom was soon a great favourite with us all, and it was quite a pleasure to ask him to do anything; he was so willing. The customers liked him, too; and he soon began to do very well, because, being so civil and obliging, he got good tips. And one great thing about him was, he was a strict teetotaller.
I dare say you’ll laugh at a licensed victualler’s wife praising a man for being a teetotaller, because if everybody were teetotallers our trade wouldn’t have been what it was; but I must say with servants it is a great thing when they are teetotallers, especially servants about a place where drink is easy to get.
Tom was quite a character in his way, being full of odd sayings, and very sharp at reckoning people up in a minute. Harry used to say that directly Tom had cleaned a man’s boots he knew his character, but I do not go so far as that, though certainly he was able to tell what people would be like, almost directly he saw them.
When anybody new came, Tom would carry their luggage upstairs, and, for fun, Harry would say sometimes, “Well, Tom, what’s this lot’s character?” Tom would say, “Grumblers, sir,” or “troublesome,” or “mean,” or “jolly,” or something else, as the case might be, and he wasn’t often wrong. Sometimes he would say, “Wait till I’ve had their boots through my hands, sir.” And it was very rarely after that that he hesitated. He used to declare that a man’s boots told a lot about him, and once he tried toexplain to me how it was with the boots he was cleaning, for an example. It wasn’t only the shape, but it was the way they were worn at the heels, and the condition of them, and the way he found them put outside the door, and all that. It was a curious idea, but I dare say living among boots, so to speak, and seeing the different varieties, makes you notice little things that other people wouldn’t.
Tom had been with us six months before I knew what his story was, for about himself he never had very much to say. Harry was chaffing him about making a fortune. He was doing so well in tips, and not spending anything, and, having nobody, so far as we knew, to keep, Harry said he would be taking a public-house and setting up in opposition to us.
Tom smiled, and said, “Not likely, sir.” And one thing led to another, till he told us why he was a teetotaller, and what he was saving his money up for.
It seems he had had a wife, who had been a great trouble to him—not at first, because they were very happy, and married for love. Tom was in a good situation in London when they married, and he got a comfortable home together, having always been a hard-working, saving fellow.
He was about thirty when he married, and his wife was ten years younger, so they were a very good match. After they had been married about ten years, and had got two nice children—a boy and a girl—a great trouble came. The little boy was the mother’s favourite, and she doted on him, as mothers will. But when the boy was a nice age, and growing into a sturdy little fellow, he caught the scarlet fever of some other children, and, in spite of everything that could be done for him, he died.
It nearly turned the poor mother’s brain, and I can quite understand it, for, oh! what should I do, if anything happened to my little one? Tom was nearly broken-hearted too; but, as he said, he had his work to go to every day, and that took his mind off his trouble. But it is so different for the woman, who has to be alone with her grief in the house, where everything reminds her of her lost one, and where she misses him every minute.
Tom came home always, directly his work was over, and he put on a cheerful face, and tried to get his wife to talkof something else, but she always came back to the one subject that was on her mind—her boy. Then Tom tried to do her good by taking her out to places of amusement now and then, and on Saturday evening they would go to a play, or a music-hall; but it was all no good. He would see his wife’s face change all of a sudden, and he would know that her thoughts were far away from the noise and the glare, and the smoke and the smiling faces round her; far away in the great cemetery, where her little boy lay buried.
Tom putting his big, rough hand across his eyes as he told me this, it brought the tears into mine. Poor woman! it must be so dreadful, when your life ought to be at its best, to be haunted like that.
Well, at last she got so melancholy and absent-minded that Tom saw it was no good taking her out, and he was quite unhappy about it. She loved him, and she loved her little girl, but she was one of those people who, when sorrow comes, haven’t the strength of mind to battle with it, but nurse it, and pamper it, and encourage it, giving themselves over body and soul to it, and brooding night and day, instead of making an effort to throw it off.
The home, which had once been so spick and span, now began to look dirty and untidy; the little girl was neglected, and when Tom came home if was a very different place that he came to from what it used to be.
He didn’t like to say much to the poor, broken-hearted woman; but he was only a man, and at last began to grumble a little, because things were going from bad to worse, and his home was really going to rack and ruin.
She didn’t say anything when he grumbled. She only cried, and that upset Tom awfully, so he said, “Come, come, missus, I didn’t mean to be unkind. Kiss me, and make it up. I know your poor heart’s broke, my lass, but life’s got to be lived, you know, my dear, and sorrows will come. Let’s make the best of it, instead of the worst. We’ve got each other, and we’ve got our little girl, God bless her, and we must be thankful for the blessings we’ve got, instead of grieving over those we’ve lost.”
Tom’s wife sighed, and said, in a weary sort of a way, she’d try; and she did try for a week or two, and Tom’s home was a little better; but after that she dropped back again into her old listless state, and nothing seemed to rouse her.
And then Tom made an awful discovery. The poor woman was doing what hundreds have done before—drinking to drown her sorrow, drinking quietly, never getting drunk, but only dazed and helpless.
He was nearly broken-hearted when he found it out, and he went down on his knees and prayed to her for God’s sake to give it up, or it would be ruin for all of them. But she didn’t seem to care now even for him, and his reproaches and prayers and entreaties only made her more miserable, and then she took more drink than ever.
He didn’t tell me all he went through for two or three years after that, but it must have been awful for him to do what he did. She ruined him, brought him down till his home was sold up. It’s a common enough story—the drinking wife or the drinking husband that ruins the home, and you can read about it in the police cases almost every day. Sometimes it comes to murder, for a man who is a decent, hard-working fellow goes mad when he gets together home after home, only to see each go to pieces, wrecked by the dreadful drink, and his children, that he is proud of and loves, running the streets ragged and neglected.
But it was doubly sad in our odd man’s case, poor fellow, because the thing that brought it about was the mother’s love for her little one. He had lost his child, and through that he lost his wife and his home.
He found at last that all his trying was no good. If he didn’t give his wife money to get the drink she pawned his things, and what she couldn’t pawn she sold. She ran him into debt and got him into difficulties everywhere, and he was driven mad when he saw his life and her life being wrecked in such a dreadful way.
It was too much for him at last, and then he grew desperate. One night, when he came home and found the place stripped and his wife in a drunken sleep, he went out himself, and, meeting a friend, they went to the public-house together, and Tom had a glass of brandy to steady his nerves, and then he had another, and then—well, andthen he took to drink too—drank hard himself to drownhistrouble, and then the end came quickly. He was dismissed from his place for drunkenness, a place he had had for twenty years, and that week he was homeless—homeless, with a drunken wife and a delicate child, and, as he said, it might have been so different.
Oh, that “might have been!” What a lot it means in our lives!
When Tom got to this part of his story, he broke down at last. “You mustn’t mind me, ma’am,” he said; “but I can’t think of that awful time even now without a shudder. The first night that I slept in the casual ward, and lay awake and thought the past over, I thought I should have gone mad. I made up my mind that the next day I’d go to one of the bridges and drown myself.
“And then I thought, What would become of my poor little girl and that poor misguided woman if I was dead?
“I was the only hope they had in the world. Then I said to myself, ‘Perhaps, now things are at the worst, they will mend. There may be a chance of my poor lass coming to her senses now she sees what she’s brought us all to. At any rate, she can’t get any drink now, and the break may be the means of curing her.’”
“And was it, Tom?” I said, for I was getting interested in his story, and I knew something must have happened to change his luck, as they call it, or he wouldn’t be our odd man now, so cheerful, and so contented and respectable.
“Well, ma’am, it didn’t all come right at once. We’d a good deal to go through before things began to mend. My wife——”
“Is your wife alive, Tom?” I said, interrupting him.
“I hope so, ma’am.”
“You hope so! Don’t you know?”
“No, ma’am—that’s the sad part of the story. That’s what I’m coming to. When we left the casual ward the next day——”
* * * * *
No. 17 going—given you a cheque for his bill. Let me see it. That’s a good bank, but I don’t think I ought to take a cheque. But if I say I won’t, it’s like suspecting the gentleman of being a swindler. His luggage is veryrespectable. Dear me, I wish Harry was here. Something’s sure to crop up just because he’s gone down for two days to see his mother. It’s only ten pounds odd. I suppose I’d better take it. All right; receipt the bill. Oh, dear, I hope it’s all right. Harry will think me so stupid if it isn’t. I shall have that cheque on my mind, night and day, till it’s paid. I don’t think I’ll take it. Susan, Susan, bring that bill back. What! you’ve given it to the gentleman? He’s got his bill receipted? Dear, dear, I don’t think I can refuse now. Well, I hope it will be all right.