Mr Isaac Gross had finished his economical bachelor breakfast, consisting of bread-and-butter and packet-cocoa, combining cheapness, succulence, and convenience. The breakfast-things were cleared away—not a long task—and Isaac was about to add a pile of old account-books to the waste-paper heap in the back-room.
“She bring them in?” said Matt.
Isaac, with his pipe in his mouth, nodded, and said in a gruff, slow growl, “Waste-paper.”
“So it seems,” said Matt, opening one or two of the books, and then closing them with an air of disgust, when his landlord took them up, added them to the heap, and before returning to his bench, had a peep out towards Mrs Slagg’s; but evidently the look was wasted, for he sighed, and took up his stirrup-leather, while old Matt drew down his mouth and bestowed a grim, contemptuous smile upon him as he rustled his paper, and, sitting down on a low workman’s bench, began to read.
“Ah!” said Matt, stopping in his reading to refresh himself with a pinch of snuff from a pill-box, “I thought so; they had an adjourned inquest about that case I told you of; but there’s only a short para here.”
“Umph!” ejaculated Isaac, taking a good pull at his wax-end, and then readjusting his boot in the stirrup, but directly after disarranging it, to take a peep at Mrs Slagg—this time with success; but he frowned at her—a telegram that she knew meant the lodger was at home, and that friendly communications must stop.
“They’ve brought it in—”
“Ain’t seen my wax, have you?” said Isaac slowly.
“Accidental death,” said Matt, not noticing the interruption; “and it’s my opinion that—What?”
“I want my wax,” said Isaac, hunting about.