"I'd like to see the color of your shirt if you took those paper cuffs off!" the latter exclaimed. "Why don't you chuck that rotten dickey away? Cave!"
The door leading into the private office was brusquely opened. Mr. Waddington, the only existing member of the firm, entered—-a large, untidy-looking man, also dressed in most uncomely fashion, and wearing an ill-brushed silk hat on the back of his head. He turned at once to his righthand man.
"Well, did you land him?" he demanded, with some eagerness.
Burton shook his head regretfully.
"It was quite impossible to interest him in the house at all, sir," he declared. "He seemed inclined to take it at first, but directly he understood the situation he would have nothing more to do with it."
Mr. Waddington's face fell. He was disappointed. He was also puzzled.
"Understood the situation," he repeated. "What the dickens do you mean,
Burton? What situation?"
"I mean about the typhoid, sir, and Lady Idlemay's refusal to have the drains put in order."
Mr. Waddington's expression for a few moments was an interesting and instructive study. His jaw had fallen, but he was still too bewildered to realize the situation properly.
"But who told him?" he gasped.