I've been a hard worker in my time,
ma'am; but I never worked harder, or stuck to my work better, than I
have these last two weeks; and all I can say is, if I ain't dead-beat,
it's only because it isn't in circumstances to dead-beat me."
Lady Eversleigh listened very quietly to this exordium; but a slight,
nervous twitching of her lips every now and then betrayed her
impatience.
"I am waiting to hear your news," she said, presently.
"And I'm a-going to tell it, ma'am, in due course," returned the
police-officer, drawing a bloated leather book from his pocket, and
opening it. "I've got all down here in regular order. First and
foremost, the baronet--he's a bad lot, is the baronet."
"I do not need to hear that from your lips."
"Very likely not, ma'am. But if you set me to watch a gentleman, you
must expect I shall form an opinion about him. The baronet has lodgings
in Villiers Street, uncommon shabby ones. I went in and took a good
survey of him and his lodgings together, in the character of a
bootmaker, taking home a pair of boots, which was intended for a Mr.
Everfield in the next street, says I, and, of course, Everfield and
Eversleigh being a'most the same names, was calculated to lead to
inconvenient mistakes. In the character of the bootmaker, Sir Reginald
Eversleigh tells me to get out of his room, and be--something
uncommonly unpleasant, and unfit for the ears of ladies.
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