The old man listened with his head askance to favour his good ear, but his visible attention all on a sad spot in one of the half-dozen worn rugs. "They must be peculiar, sir, when a gentleman comes into a property like this and goes three months without so much as a nat'ral curiosity———! I don't speak of anything but what is nat'ral, sir; but there have been people here———"
"There have repeatedly been people here!" Mr. Prodmore complacently interrupted.
"As you say, sir—to be shown over. With the master himself never shown!" Chivers dismally commented.
"He shall be, so that nobody can miss him!" Mr. Prodmore, for his own reassurance as well, hastened to retort.
His companion risked a tiny explanation. "It will be a mercy indeed to look on him; but I meant that he has not been taken round."
"That's what I meant too. I'll take him—round and round: it's exactly what I've come for!" Mr. Prodmore rang out; and his eyes made the lower circuit again, looking as pleased as such a pair of eyes could look with nobody as yet quite good enough either to terrify or to tickle. "He can't fail to be affected, though
