CHAPTER XXVII

More Old Soldiers Than One

Mr. George has not far to ride with folded arms upon the box, for

their destination is Lincoln’s Inn Fields. When the driver stops his

horses, Mr. George alights, and looking in at the window, says,

“What, Mr. Tulkinghorn’s your man, is he?”

“Yes, my dear friend. Do you know him, Mr. George?”

“Why, I have heard of him—seen him too, I think. But I don’t know

him, and he don’t know me.”

There ensues the carrying of Mr. Smallweed upstairs, which is done to

perfection with the trooper’s help. He is borne into Mr.

Tulkinghorn’s great room and deposited on the Turkey rug before the

fire. Mr. Tulkinghorn is not within at the present moment but will be

back directly. The occupant of the pew in the hall, having said thus

much, stirs the fire and leaves the triumvirate to warm themselves.

Mr. George is mightily curious in respect of the room. He looks up at

the painted ceiling, looks round at the old law-books, contemplates

the portraits of the great clients, reads aloud the names on the

boxes.

“‘Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet,’” Mr. George reads thoughtfully.

“Ha! ‘Manor of Chesney Wold.’ Humph!” Mr. George stands looking at

these boxes a long while—as if they were pictures—and comes back to

the fire repeating, “Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, and Manor of

Chesney Wold, hey?”

“Worth a mint of money, Mr. George!” whispers Grandfather Smallweed,

rubbing his legs. “Powerfully rich!”

“Who do you mean? This old gentleman, or the Baronet?”

“This gentleman, this gentleman.”

“So I have heard; and knows a thing or two, I’ll hold a wager. Not

bad quarters, either,” says Mr. George, looking round again. “See the

strong-box yonder!”

This reply is cut short by Mr. Tulkinghorn’s arrival. There is no

change in him, of course. Rustily drest, with his spectacles in his

hand, and their very case worn threadbare. In manner, close and dry.

In voice, husky and low. In face, watchful behind a blind; habitually

not uncensorious and contemptuous perhaps. The peerage may have

warmer worshippers and faithfuller believers than Mr. Tulkinghorn,

after all, if everything were known.

“Good morning, Mr. Smallweed, good morning!” he says as he comes in.

“You have brought the sergeant, I see. Sit down, sergeant.”

As Mr. Tulkinghorn takes off his gloves and puts them in his hat, he

looks with half-closed eyes across the room to where the trooper

stands and says within himself perchance, “You’ll do, my friend!”

“Sit down, sergeant,” he repeats as he comes to his table, which is

set on one side of the fire, and takes his easy-chair. “Cold and raw

this morning, cold and raw!” Mr. Tulkinghorn warms before the bars,

alternately, the palms and knuckles of his hands and looks (from

behind that blind which is always down) at the trio sitting in a

little semicircle before him.

“Now, I can feel what I am about” (as perhaps he can in two senses),

“Mr. Smallweed.” The old gentleman is newly shaken up by Judy to bear

his part in the conversation. “You have brought our good friend the

sergeant, I see.”

“Yes, sir,” returns Mr. Smallweed, very servile to the lawyer’s

wealth and influence.

“And what does the sergeant say about this business?”

“Mr. George,” says Grandfather Smallweed with a tremulous wave of his

shrivelled hand, “this is the gentleman, sir.”

Mr. George salutes the gentleman but otherwise sits bolt upright and

profoundly silent—very forward in his chair, as if the full

complement of regulation appendages for a field-day hung about him.

Mr. Tulkinghorn proceeds, “Well, George—I believe your name is

George?”

“It is so, Sir.”

“What do you say, George?”

“I ask your pardon, sir,” returns the trooper, “but I should wish to

know what YOU say?”

“Do you mean in point of reward?”

“I mean in point of everything, sir.”

This is so very trying to Mr. Smallweed’s temper that he suddenly

breaks out with “You’re a brimstone beast!” and as suddenly asks

pardon of Mr. Tulkinghorn, excusing himself for this slip of the

tongue by saying to Judy, “I was thinking of your grandmother, my

dear.”

“I supposed, sergeant,” Mr. Tulkinghorn resumes as he leans on one

side of his chair and crosses his legs, “that Mr. Smallweed might

have sufficiently explained the matter. It lies in the smallest

compass, however. You served under Captain Hawdon at one time, and

were his attendant in illness, and rendered him many little services,

and were rather in his confidence, I am told. That is so, is it not?”

“Yes, sir, that is so,” says Mr. George with military brevity.

“Therefore you may happen to have in your possession

something—anything, no matter what; accounts, instructions, orders,

a letter, anything—in Captain Hawdon’s writing. I wish to compare

his writing with some that I have. If you can give me the

opportunity, you shall be rewarded for your trouble. Three, four,

five, guineas, you would consider handsome, I dare say.”

“Noble, my dear friend!” cries Grandfather Smallweed, screwing up his

eyes.

“If not, say how much more, in your conscience as a soldier, you can

demand. There is no need for you to part with the writing, against

your inclination—though I should prefer to have it.”

Mr. George sits squared in exactly the same attitude, looks at the

painted ceiling, and says never a word. The irascible Mr. Smallweed

scratches the air.

“The question is,” says Mr. Tulkinghorn in his methodical, subdued,

uninterested way, “first, whether you have any of Captain Hawdon’s

writing?”

“First, whether I have any of Captain Hawdon’s writing, sir,” repeats

Mr. George.

“Secondly, what will satisfy you for the trouble of producing it?”

“Secondly, what will satisfy me for the trouble of producing it,

sir,” repeats Mr. George.

“Thirdly, you can judge for yourself whether it is at all like that,”

says Mr. Tulkinghorn, suddenly handing him some sheets of written

paper tied together.

“Whether it is at all like that, sir. Just so,” repeats Mr. George.

All three repetitions Mr. George pronounces in a mechanical manner,

looking straight at Mr. Tulkinghorn; nor does he so much as glance at

the affidavit in Jarndyce and Jarndyce, that has been given to him

for his inspection (though he still holds it in his hand), but

continues to look at the lawyer with an air of troubled meditation.

“Well?” says Mr. Tulkinghorn. “What do you say?”

“Well, sir,” replies Mr. George, rising erect and looking immense, “I

would rather, if you’ll excuse me, have nothing to do with this.”

Mr. Tulkinghorn, outwardly quite undisturbed, demands, “Why not?”

“Why, sir,” returns the trooper. “Except on military compulsion, I am

not a man of business. Among civilians I am what they call in

Scotland a ne’er-do-weel. I have no head for papers, sir. I can stand

any fire better than a fire of cross questions. I mentioned to Mr.

Smallweed, only an hour or so ago, that when I come into things of

this kind I feel as if I was being smothered. And that is my

sensation,” says Mr. George, looking round upon the company, “at the

present moment.”

With that, he takes three strides forward to replace the papers on

the lawyer’s table and three strides backward to resume his former

station, where he stands perfectly upright, now looking at the ground

and now at the painted ceiling, with his hands behind him as if to

prevent himself from accepting any other document whatever.

Under this provocation, Mr. Smallweed’s favourite adjective of

disparagement is so close to his tongue that he begins the words “my

dear friend” with the monosyllable “brim,” thus converting the

possessive pronoun into brimmy and appearing to have an impediment in

his speech. Once past this difficulty, however, he exhorts his dear

friend in the tenderest manner not to be rash, but to do what so

eminent a gentleman requires, and to do it with a good grace,

confident that it must be unobjectionable as well as profitable. Mr.

Tulkinghorn merely utters an occasional sentence, as, “You are the

best judge of your own interest, sergeant.” “Take care you do no harm

by this.” “Please yourself, please yourself.” “If you know what you

mean, that’s quite enough.” These he utters with an appearance of

perfect indifference as he looks over the papers on his table and

prepares to write a letter.

Mr. George looks distrustfully from the painted ceiling to the

ground, from the ground to Mr. Smallweed, from Mr. Smallweed to Mr.

Tulkinghorn, and from Mr. Tulkinghorn to the painted ceiling again,

often in his perplexity changing the leg on which he rests.

“I do assure you, sir,” says Mr. George, “not to say it offensively,

that between you and Mr. Smallweed here, I really am being smothered

fifty times over. I really am, sir. I am not a match for you

gentlemen. Will you allow me to ask why you want to see the captain’s

hand, in the case that I could find any specimen of it?”

Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly shakes his head. “No. If you were a man of

business, sergeant, you would not need to be informed that there are

confidential reasons, very harmless in themselves, for many such

wants in the profession to which I belong. But if you are afraid of

doing any injury to Captain Hawdon, you may set your mind at rest

about that.”

“Aye! He is dead, sir.”

“IS he?” Mr. Tulkinghorn quietly sits down to write.

“Well, sir,” says the trooper, looking into his hat after another

disconcerted pause, “I am sorry not to have given you more

satisfaction. If it would be any satisfaction to any one that I

should be confirmed in my judgment that I would rather have nothing

to do with this by a friend of mine who has a better head for

business than I have, and who is an old soldier, I am willing to

consult with him. I—I really am so completely smothered myself at

present,” says Mr. George, passing his hand hopelessly across his

brow, “that I don’t know but what it might be a satisfaction to me.”

Mr. Smallweed, hearing that this authority is an old soldier, so

strongly inculcates the expediency of the trooper’s taking counsel

with him, and particularly informing him of its being a question of

five guineas or more, that Mr. George engages to go and see him. Mr.

Tulkinghorn says nothing either way.

“I’ll consult my friend, then, by your leave, sir,” says the trooper,

“and I’ll take the liberty of looking in again with the final answer

in the course of the day. Mr. Smallweed, if you wish to be carried

downstairs—”

“In a moment, my dear friend, in a moment. Will you first let me

speak half a word with this gentleman in private?”

“Certainly, sir. Don’t hurry yourself on my account.” The trooper

retires to a distant part of the room and resumes his curious

inspection of the boxes, strong and otherwise.

“If I wasn’t as weak as a brimstone baby, sir,” whispers Grandfather

Smallweed, drawing the lawyer down to his level by the lapel of his

coat and flashing some half-quenched green fire out of his angry

eyes, “I’d tear the writing away from him. He’s got it buttoned in

his breast. I saw him put it there. Judy saw him put it there. Speak

up, you crabbed image for the sign of a walking-stick shop, and say

you saw him put it there!”

This vehement conjuration the old gentleman accompanies with such a

thrust at his granddaughter that it is too much for his strength, and

he slips away out of his chair, drawing Mr. Tulkinghorn with him,

until he is arrested by Judy, and well shaken.

“Violence will not do for me, my friend,” Mr. Tulkinghorn then

remarks coolly.

“No, no, I know, I know, sir. But it’s chafing and

galling—it’s—it’s worse than your smattering chattering magpie of a

grandmother,” to the imperturbable Judy, who only looks at the fire,

“to know he has got what’s wanted and won’t give it up. He, not to

give it up! HE! A vagabond! But never mind, sir, never mind. At the

most, he has only his own way for a little while. I have him

periodically in a vice. I’ll twist him, sir. I’ll screw him, sir. If

he won’t do it with a good grace, I’ll make him do it with a bad one,

sir! Now, my dear Mr. George,” says Grandfather Smallweed, winking at

the lawyer hideously as he releases him, “I am ready for your kind

assistance, my excellent friend!”

Mr. Tulkinghorn, with some shadowy sign of amusement manifesting

itself through his self-possession, stands on the hearth-rug with his

back to the fire, watching the disappearance of Mr. Smallweed and

acknowledging the trooper’s parting salute with one slight nod.

It is more difficult to get rid of the old gentleman, Mr. George

finds, than to bear a hand in carrying him downstairs, for when he is

replaced in his conveyance, he is so loquacious on the subject of the

guineas and retains such an affectionate hold of his button—having,

in truth, a secret longing to rip his coat open and rob him—that

some degree of force is necessary on the trooper’s part to effect a

separation. It is accomplished at last, and he proceeds alone in

quest of his adviser.

By the cloisterly Temple, and by Whitefriars (there, not without a

glance at Hanging-Sword Alley, which would seem to be something in

his way), and by Blackfriars Bridge, and Blackfriars Road, Mr. George

sedately marches to a street of little shops lying somewhere in that

ganglion of roads from Kent and Surrey, and of streets from the

bridges of London, centring in the far-famed elephant who has lost

his castle formed of a thousand four-horse coaches to a stronger iron

monster than he, ready to chop him into mince-meat any day he dares.

To one of the little shops in this street, which is a musician’s

shop, having a few fiddles in the window, and some Pan’s pipes and a

tambourine, and a triangle, and certain elongated scraps of music,

Mr. George directs his massive tread. And halting at a few paces from

it, as he sees a soldierly looking woman, with her outer skirts

tucked up, come forth with a small wooden tub, and in that tub

commence a-whisking and a-splashing on the margin of the pavement,

Mr. George says to himself, “She’s as usual, washing greens. I never

saw her, except upon a baggage-waggon, when she wasn’t washing

greens!”

The subject of this reflection is at all events so occupied in

washing greens at present that she remains unsuspicious of Mr.

George’s approach until, lifting up herself and her tub together when

she has poured the water off into the gutter, she finds him standing

near her. Her reception of him is not flattering.

“George, I never see you but I wish you was a hundred mile away!”

The trooper, without remarking on this welcome, follows into the

musical-instrument shop, where the lady places her tub of greens upon

the counter, and having shaken hands with him, rests her arms upon

it.

“I never,” she says, “George, consider Matthew Bagnet safe a minute

when you’re near him. You are that restless and that roving—”

“Yes! I know I am, Mrs. Bagnet. I know I am.”

“You know you are!” says Mrs. Bagnet. “What’s the use of that? WHY

are you?”

“The nature of the animal, I suppose,” returns the trooper

good-humouredly.

“Ah!” cries Mrs. Bagnet, something shrilly. “But what satisfaction

will the nature of the animal be to me when the animal shall have

tempted my Mat away from the musical business to New Zealand or

Australey?”

Mrs. Bagnet is not at all an ill-looking woman. Rather large-boned, a

little coarse in the grain, and freckled by the sun and wind which

have tanned her hair upon the forehead, but healthy, wholesome, and

bright-eyed. A strong, busy, active, honest-faced woman of from

forty-five to fifty. Clean, hardy, and so economically dressed

(though substantially) that the only article of ornament of which she

stands possessed appear’s to be her wedding-ring, around which her

finger has grown to be so large since it was put on that it will

never come off again until it shall mingle with Mrs. Bagnet’s dust.

“Mrs. Bagnet,” says the trooper, “I am on my parole with you. Mat

will get no harm from me. You may trust me so far.”

“Well, I think I may. But the very looks of you are unsettling,” Mrs.

Bagnet rejoins. “Ah, George, George! If you had only settled down and

married Joe Pouch’s widow when he died in North America, SHE’D have

combed your hair for you.”

“It was a chance for me, certainly,” returns the trooper half

laughingly, half seriously, “but I shall never settle down into a

respectable man now. Joe Pouch’s widow might have done me good—there

was something in her, and something of her—but I couldn’t make up my

mind to it. If I had had the luck to meet with such a wife as Mat

found!”

Mrs. Bagnet, who seems in a virtuous way to be under little reserve

with a good sort of fellow, but to be another good sort of fellow

herself for that matter, receives this compliment by flicking Mr.

George in the face with a head of greens and taking her tub into the

little room behind the shop.

“Why, Quebec, my poppet,” says George, following, on invitation, into

that department. “And little Malta, too! Come and kiss your Bluffy!”

These young ladies—not supposed to have been actually christened by

the names applied to them, though always so called in the family from

the places of their birth in barracks—are respectively employed on

three-legged stools, the younger (some five or six years old) in

learning her letters out of a penny primer, the elder (eight or nine

perhaps) in teaching her and sewing with great assiduity. Both hail

Mr. George with acclamations as an old friend and after some kissing

and romping plant their stools beside him.

“And how’s young Woolwich?” says Mr. George.

“Ah! There now!” cries Mrs. Bagnet, turning about from her saucepans

(for she is cooking dinner) with a bright flush on her face. “Would

you believe it? Got an engagement at the theayter, with his father,

to play the fife in a military piece.”

“Well done, my godson!” cries Mr. George, slapping his thigh.

“I believe you!” says Mrs. Bagnet. “He’s a Briton. That’s what

Woolwich is. A Briton!”

“And Mat blows away at his bassoon, and you’re respectable civilians

one and all,” says Mr. George. “Family people. Children growing up.

Mat’s old mother in Scotland, and your old father somewhere else,

corresponded with, and helped a little, and—well, well! To be sure,

I don’t know why I shouldn’t be wished a hundred mile away, for I

have not much to do with all this!”

Mr. George is becoming thoughtful, sitting before the fire in the

whitewashed room, which has a sanded floor and a barrack smell and

contains nothing superfluous and has not a visible speck of dirt or

dust in it, from the faces of Quebec and Malta to the bright tin pots

and pannikins upon the dresser shelves—Mr. George is becoming

thoughtful, sitting here while Mrs. Bagnet is busy, when Mr. Bagnet

and young Woolwich opportunely come home. Mr. Bagnet is an

ex-artilleryman, tall and upright, with shaggy eyebrows and whiskers

like the fibres of a coco-nut, not a hair upon his head, and a torrid

complexion. His voice, short, deep, and resonant, is not at all

unlike the tones of the instrument to which he is devoted. Indeed

there may be generally observed in him an unbending, unyielding,

brass-bound air, as if he were himself the bassoon of the human

orchestra. Young Woolwich is the type and model of a young drummer.

Both father and son salute the trooper heartily. He saying, in due

season, that he has come to advise with Mr. Bagnet, Mr. Bagnet

hospitably declares that he will hear of no business until after

dinner and that his friend shall not partake of his counsel without

first partaking of boiled pork and greens. The trooper yielding to

this invitation, he and Mr. Bagnet, not to embarrass the domestic

preparations, go forth to take a turn up and down the little street,

which they promenade with measured tread and folded arms, as if it

were a rampart.

“George,” says Mr. Bagnet. “You know me. It’s my old girl that

advises. She has the head. But I never own to it before her.

Discipline must be maintained. Wait till the greens is off her mind.

Then we’ll consult. Whatever the old girl says, do—do it!”

“I intend to, Mat,” replies the other. “I would sooner take her

opinion than that of a college.”

“College,” returns Mr. Bagnet in short sentences, bassoon-like. “What

college could you leave—in another quarter of the world—with

nothing but a grey cloak and an umbrella—to make its way home to

Europe? The old girl would do it to-morrow. Did it once!”

“You are right,” says Mr. George.

“What college,” pursues Bagnet, “could you set up in life—with two

penn’orth of white lime—a penn’orth of fuller’s earth—a ha’porth of

sand—and the rest of the change out of sixpence in money? That’s

what the old girl started on. In the present business.”

“I am rejoiced to hear it’s thriving, Mat.”

“The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, acquiescing, “saves. Has a stocking

somewhere. With money in it. I never saw it. But I know she’s got it.

Wait till the greens is off her mind. Then she’ll set you up.”

“She is a treasure!” exclaims Mr. George.

“She’s more. But I never own to it before her. Discipline must be

maintained. It was the old girl that brought out my musical

abilities. I should have been in the artillery now but for the old

girl. Six years I hammered at the fiddle. Ten at the flute. The old

girl said it wouldn’t do; intention good, but want of flexibility;

try the bassoon. The old girl borrowed a bassoon from the bandmaster

of the Rifle Regiment. I practised in the trenches. Got on, got

another, get a living by it!”

George remarks that she looks as fresh as a rose and as sound as an

apple.

“The old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet in reply, “is a thoroughly fine

woman. Consequently she is like a thoroughly fine day. Gets finer as

she gets on. I never saw the old girl’s equal. But I never own to it

before her. Discipline must be maintained!”

Proceeding to converse on indifferent matters, they walk up and down

the little street, keeping step and time, until summoned by Quebec

and Malta to do justice to the pork and greens, over which Mrs.

Bagnet, like a military chaplain, says a short grace. In the

distribution of these comestibles, as in every other household duty,

Mrs. Bagnet develops an exact system, sitting with every dish before

her, allotting to every portion of pork its own portion of

pot-liquor, greens, potatoes, and even mustard, and serving it out

complete. Having likewise served out the beer from a can and thus

supplied the mess with all things necessary, Mrs. Bagnet proceeds to

satisfy her own hunger, which is in a healthy state. The kit of the

mess, if the table furniture may be so denominated, is chiefly

composed of utensils of horn and tin that have done duty in several

parts of the world. Young Woolwich’s knife, in particular, which is

of the oyster kind, with the additional feature of a strong

shutting-up movement which frequently balks the appetite of that

young musician, is mentioned as having gone in various hands the

complete round of foreign service.

The dinner done, Mrs. Bagnet, assisted by the younger branches (who

polish their own cups and platters, knives and forks), makes all the

dinner garniture shine as brightly as before and puts it all away,

first sweeping the hearth, to the end that Mr. Bagnet and the visitor

may not be retarded in the smoking of their pipes. These household

cares involve much pattening and counter-pattening in the backyard

and considerable use of a pail, which is finally so happy as to

assist in the ablutions of Mrs. Bagnet herself. That old girl

reappearing by and by, quite fresh, and sitting down to her

needlework, then and only then—the greens being only then to be

considered as entirely off her mind—Mr. Bagnet requests the trooper

to state his case.

This Mr. George does with great discretion, appearing to address

himself to Mr. Bagnet, but having an eye solely on the old girl all

the time, as Bagnet has himself. She, equally discreet, busies

herself with her needlework. The case fully stated, Mr. Bagnet

resorts to his standard artifice for the maintenance of discipline.

“That’s the whole of it, is it, George?” says he.

“That’s the whole of it.”

“You act according to my opinion?”

“I shall be guided,” replies George, “entirely by it.”

“Old girl,” says Mr. Bagnet, “give him my opinion. You know it. Tell

him what it is.”

It is that he cannot have too little to do with people who are too

deep for him and cannot be too careful of interference with matters

he does not understand—that the plain rule is to do nothing in the

dark, to be a party to nothing underhanded or mysterious, and never

to put his foot where he cannot see the ground. This, in effect, is

Mr. Bagnet’s opinion, as delivered through the old girl, and it so

relieves Mr. George’s mind by confirming his own opinion and

banishing his doubts that he composes himself to smoke another pipe

on that exceptional occasion and to have a talk over old times with

the whole Bagnet family, according to their various ranges of

experience.

Through these means it comes to pass that Mr. George does not again

rise to his full height in that parlour until the time is drawing on

when the bassoon and fife are expected by a British public at the

theatre; and as it takes time even then for Mr. George, in his

domestic character of Bluffy, to take leave of Quebec and Malta and

insinuate a sponsorial shilling into the pocket of his godson with

felicitations on his success in life, it is dark when Mr. George

again turns his face towards Lincoln’s Inn Fields.

“A family home,” he ruminates as he marches along, “however small it

is, makes a man like me look lonely. But it’s well I never made that

evolution of matrimony. I shouldn’t have been fit for it. I am such a

vagabond still, even at my present time of life, that I couldn’t hold

to the gallery a month together if it was a regular pursuit or if I

didn’t camp there, gipsy fashion. Come! I disgrace nobody and cumber

nobody; that’s something. I have not done that for many a long year!”

So he whistles it off and marches on.

Arrived in Lincoln’s Inn Fields and mounting Mr. Tulkinghorn’s stair,

he finds the outer door closed and the chambers shut, but the trooper

not knowing much about outer doors, and the staircase being dark

besides, he is yet fumbling and groping about, hoping to discover a

bell-handle or to open the door for himself, when Mr. Tulkinghorn

comes up the stairs (quietly, of course) and angrily asks, “Who is

that? What are you doing there?”

“I ask your pardon, sir. It’s George. The sergeant.”

“And couldn’t George, the sergeant, see that my door was locked?”

“Why, no, sir, I couldn’t. At any rate, I didn’t,” says the trooper,

rather nettled.

“Have you changed your mind? Or are you in the same mind?” Mr.

Tulkinghorn demands. But he knows well enough at a glance.

“In the same mind, sir.”

“I thought so. That’s sufficient. You can go. So you are the man,”

says Mr. Tulkinghorn, opening his door with the key, “in whose

hiding-place Mr. Gridley was found?”

“Yes, I AM the man,” says the trooper, stopping two or three stairs

down. “What then, sir?”

“What then? I don’t like your associates. You should not have seen

the inside of my door this morning if I had thought of your being

that man. Gridley? A threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow.”

With these words, spoken in an unusually high tone for him, the

lawyer goes into his rooms and shuts the door with a thundering

noise.

Mr. George takes his dismissal in great dudgeon, the greater because

a clerk coming up the stairs has heard the last words of all and

evidently applies them to him. “A pretty character to bear,” the

trooper growls with a hasty oath as he strides downstairs. “A

threatening, murderous, dangerous fellow!” And looking up, he sees

the clerk looking down at him and marking him as he passes a lamp.

This so intensifies his dudgeon that for five minutes he is in an ill

humour. But he whistles that off like the rest of it and marches home

to the shooting gallery.