Mr. Gubb arose slowly, like a giraffe, and brushed his knees.
“Why?” he asked.
“Snoopin’ an’ sneakin’ like that!” said Mr. Critz crossly. “Scarin’ me to fits, a’most. How’d I know who ’twas? If you want to come in, why don’t you come right in, ’stead of snoopin’ an’ sneakin’ an’ fallin’ in that way?”
As he talked, Mr. Critz replaced the shells and the rubber heel and the rubber pea and the gold-brick on the washstand. He was a plump little man with a shiny bald head and a white goatee. As he talked, he bent his head down, so that he might look above the glasses of his spectacles; and in spite of his pretended anger he looked like nothing so much as a kindly, benevolent old gentleman—the sort of old gentleman that keeps a small store in a small village and sells writing-paper that smells of soap, and candy sticks out of a glass jar with a glass cover.
“How’d I know but what you was a detective?” he asked, in a gentler tone.
“I am,” said Mr. Gubb soberly, seating himself on one of the two beds. “I’m putty near a deteckative, as you might say.”
“Ding it all!” said Mr. Critz. “Now I got to go and hunt another room. I can’t room with no detective.”
“Well, now, Mr. Critz,” said Mr. Gubb, “I don’t want you should feel that way.”
“Knowin’ you are a detective makes me all nervous,” complained Mr. Critz; “and a man in my business has to have a steady hand, don’t he?”
“You ain’t told me what your business is,” said Mr. Gubb.