"I think you've lost some of the old hands here since this time last year, John?"
"You knows the house then, sir?"
"Well;—I've been here before."
"There was four of them went, I think it's just about twelve months back, sir."
"There was a man in the yard I used to know, and last time I was down here, I found that he was gone."
"There was one of 'em out of the yard, and two out of the house. Master and them had got to very high words. There was poor Scuttle, who had been post-boy at 'The Compasses' before he came here."
"He went away to New Zealand, didn't he?"
"B'leve he did, sir; or to some foreign parts. And Anne, as was under-chambermaid here; she went with him, fool as she was. They got theirselves married and went off, and he was well nigh as old as me. But seems he'd saved a little money, and that goes a long way with any girl."
"Was he the man who drove Mr. Soames that day the cheque was lost?" Mr. Toogood asked this question perhaps a little too abruptly. At any rate he obtained no answer to it. The waiter said he knew nothing about Mr. Soames, or the cheque, and the lawyer suspecting that the waiter was suspecting him, finished his brandy-and-water and went to bed.