The ci-devant sweeper, in his smart livery, appeared at the door.
“Beck, my poor fellow, I am ashamed to have kept you waiting so long; but I received a letter this morning which relates to you. Let me see,—I left it in my study upstairs. Ah, you’ll never find the way; follow me,—I have some questions to put to you.”
“Nothin’ agin my carakter, I hopes, your honour,” said Beck, timidly.
“Oh, no!”
“Noos of the mattris, then?” exclaimed Beck, joyfully.
“Nor that either,” answered Percival, laughing, as he lighted the chamber candlestick, and, followed by Beck, ascended the grand staircase to a small room which, as it adjoined his sleeping apartment, he had habitually used as his morning writing-room and study.
Percival had, indeed, received that day a letter which had occasioned him much surprise; it was from John Ardworth, and ran thus:—
MY DEAR PERCIVAL,—It seems that you have taken into your service a young man known only by the name of Beck. Is he now with you at Laughton? If so, pray retain him, and suffer him to be in readiness to come to me at a day’s notice if wanted, though it is probable enough that I may rather come to you. At present, strange as it may seem to you, I am detained in London by business connected with that important personage. Will you ask him carelessly, as it were, in the mean while; the following questions:—
First, how did he become possessed of a certain child’s coral which he left at the house of one Becky Carruthers, in Cole’s Building?
Secondly, is he aware of any mark on his arm,—if so, will he describe it?