Mr. Snagsby arrives hastily in his grey coat and his black sleeves. “Dear me, dear me,” he says; “and it has come to this, has it! Bless my soul!”
“Can you give the person of the house any information about this unfortunate creature, Snagsby?” inquires Mr. Tulkinghorn. “He was in arrears with his rent, it seems. And he must be buried, you know.”
“Well, sir,” says Mr. Snagsby, coughing his apologetic cough behind his hand, “I really don’t know what advice I could offer, except sending for the beadle.”
“I don’t speak of advice,” returns Mr. Tulkinghorn. “I could advise—”
“No one better, sir, I am sure,” says Mr. Snagsby, with his deferential cough.
“I speak of affording some clue to his connexions, or to where he came from, or to anything concerning him.”
“I assure you, sir,” says Mr. Snagsby after prefacing his reply with his cough of general propitiation, “that I no more know where he came from than I know—”
“Where he has gone to, perhaps,” suggests the surgeon to help him out.
A pause. Mr. Tulkinghorn looking at the law-stationer. Mr. Krook, with his mouth open, looking for somebody to speak next.
“As to his connexions, sir,” says Mr. Snagsby, “if a person was to say to me, ‘Snagsby, here’s twenty thousand pound down, ready for you in the Bank of England if you’ll only name one of ’em,’ I couldn’t do it, sir! About a year and a half ago—to the best of my belief, at the time when he first came to lodge at the present rag and bottle shop—”