"And you don't set your eyes on him?"
"No, and don't want to."
"Now, old woman, just keep your mind on what I'm saying--" but here Mr. Chester interrupted himself by exclaiming, "What's that row upstairs? It comes from his room."
The noise proceeded undoubtedly from the room let to the new lodger, and, as well as she could judge, was caused by the stealthy moving about of furniture. It did not last long and presently all was quiet again.
"I shall have to go up to him," said Mr. Chester, shaking his head at himself in the dark, "if he gives us any more of that fun. He's a stranger in the neighbourhood. Not a soul in the Royal George ever set eyes on him before to-night. He comes here with a child--a mere baby--that don't seem as if it had any right to be here at all. He takes the room and pays a fortnight in advance, without ever asking for a receipt, and without ever saying his name is George, or Jim, or Jo or whatever else it might be. He pulls out a handful of money, too. Does this sound suspicious, or doesn't it?"
"It does, as you put it," acquiesced Mrs. Chester, now awake.
"And, by Jove! there's something more suspicious behind. Who showed him his bedroom?"
"I didn't."
"And I didn't. Who showed him how to open the street-door without a key?"
"I didn't."