“I’m glad he’s not in,” said Mr. Gorby.  “Would you allow me to have a few moments’ conversation?”

“What is it?” asked the landlady, her curiosity being roused.

“I’ll tell you when we get inside,” answered Mr. Gorby.

She looked at him with her sharp little eyes, and seeing nothing disreputable about him, led the way upstairs, crackling loudly the whole time.  This so astonished Mr. Gorby that he cast about in his own mind for an explanation of the phenomenon.

“Wants oiling about the jints,” was his conclusion, “but I never heard anything like it, and she looks as if she’d snap in two, she’s that brittle.”

Mrs. Sampson took Gorby into Brian’s sitting-room, and having closed the door, sat down and prepared to hear what he had to say for himself.

“I ’ope it ain’t bills,” she said.  “Mr. Fitzgerald ‘avin’ money in the bank, and everythin’ respectable like a gentleman as ‘e is, tho’, to be sure, your bill might come down on him unbeknown, ’e not ‘avin’ kept it in mind, which it ain’t everybody as ’ave sich a good memory as my aunt on my mother’s side, she ‘avin’ been famous for ’er dates like a ’istory, not to speak of ’er multiplication tables, and the numbers of people’s ’ouses.”

“It’s not bills,” answered Mr. Gorby, who, having vainly attempted to stem the shrill torrent of words, had given in, and waited mildly until she had finished; “I only want to know a few things about Mr. Fitzgerald’s habits.”

“And what for?” asked Mrs. Sampson, indignantly.  “Are you a noospaper a-putin’ in articles about people who don’t want to see ’emselves in print, which I knows your ’abits, my late ’usband ‘avin’ bin a printer on a paper which bust up, not ‘avin’ the money to pay wages, thro’ which, there was doo to him the sum of one pound seven and sixpence halfpenny, which I, bein’ ’is widder, ought to ’ave, not that I expects to see it on this side of the grave—­oh, dear, no!” and she gave a shrill, elfish laugh.

Mr. Gorby, seeing that unless he took the bull by the horns, he would never be able to get what he wanted, grew desperate, and plunged in medias Res.

“I am an insurance agent,” he said, rapidly, so as to prevent any interruption, “and Mr. Fitzgerald desires to insure his life in our company.  I, therefore, want to find out if he is a good life to insure; does he live temperately? keep early hours? and, in fact, all about him?”

“I shall be ’appy to answer any enquiries which may be of use to you, sir,” replied Mrs. Sampson; “knowin’ as I do, ’ow good a insurance is to a family, should the ‘ead of it be taken off unexpected, leavin’ a widder, which, as I know, Mr. Fitzgerald is a-goin’ to be married soon, an’ I ’opes ’e’ll be ‘appy, tho’ thro’ it I loses a lodger as ’as allays paid regler, an’ be’aved like a gentleman.”

“So he is a temperate man?” said Mr. Gorby, feeling his way cautiously.