"Oh, hang it, no! not that blackguard," said Jack. "It's all right, old gentleman; this is Mr. Clutterbuck's heir."
The old caretaker took no notice of this remark.
"Charles Strong?" he continued, unmoved.
"He's dead too," I said.
"Ellis?" said the old fellow, doubling up his paper and preparing to return the envelope into his pocket.
"No," said I, "but"—
"Then you don't come in here," concluded the man, banging the door in our faces and double-locking it.
The old caretaker's arbitrary action nonplussed me for the moment.
"But my name is down in the will together with those you have read out," I cried through the panels. Jack stood and laughed. I heard the old man stumping towards the house. I shrieked out a repetition of my last appeal. He paused and spoke. An errand boy stopped to look on, and whistled "D'isy, D'isy, give me your answer do," so loudly that I could scarcely hear the reply.
"No, it ain't," shouted the old fellow back again. "For I copied these down from it myself, and there wasn't another. And what's more, this 'ere door don't git opened to no one else but these four, and if yer wants to git into the garden, yer'll 'ave to climb the wall and see what yer'll git from the dawg. He's loose in here—speak, Ginger!"