"Nor water rate? No, you ain't the water rate," she continued, meditatively. "I knows him. He wears a brown billycock and glasses, 'e does, and I see him walking with Mary Ann Stubbins on a Sunday."
He admitted doubtfully that she was correct He was not the water rate.
It began to dawn upon her that it would be safe to admit him into the house.
"Just yer come hinside, will yer," she said. "I dunno who yer are, but I guess you ain't nothink to be afraid of. Come hinside."
She opened the door and admitted him into a dark, narrow passage. He had to squeeze himself against the wall to allow her to pass him. Then she surveyed him critically again, with her arms akimbo and her head a little on one side.
"I reckon you've got a name," she surmised. "What is it?"
"You can tell Mr. Bartlezzi that a gentleman from abroad desires to speak with him," he answered. "My name is immaterial. Will you accept this?" he added, holding out a half-crown timidly toward her.
She grabbed it from him, and turned it over incredulously in the semi-darkness. There was no deception about it; it was indeed a half-crown—the first she had ever been given in her life.
She dropped a rude sort of curtsey, and, opening the door of a room, half ushered, half pushed him in. Then she went to the foot of the stairs, the coin tightly clinched in her hand, and he heard her call out——
"Master! There's a gent here from furrin parts has wants you, which 'is name his immaterial. 'E's in the parlor."