That evening at tea-time Jane came and said—
"Master Dicky, there's an old aged man at the door inquiring if you live here."
So Dicky thought it was the bootmaker perhaps; so he went out, and Oswald went with him, because he wanted to ask for a bit of cobbler's wax.
But it was not the shoemaker. It was an old man, pale in the face and white in the hair, and he was so old that we asked him into Father's study by the fire, as soon as we had found out it was really Dicky he wanted to see.
When we got him there he said—
"Might I trouble you to shut the door?"
This is the way a burglar or a murderer might behave, but we did not think he was one. He looked too old for these professions.
When the door was shut, he said—
"I ain't got much to say, young gemmen. It's only to ask was it you sent this?"
He pulled a piece of paper out of his pocket, and it was our list. Oswald and Dicky looked at each other.