“Chap?—what chap, Mr Gemp?”
“Come now, you know what I mean. That shack: that ragged, shabby fellow—him as come to see Mr Hallam the other day?”
“Oh, the poor fellow that Mr Hallam helped?”
“To be sure—him. Been here again?” said Gemp, making a rasping noise with a rough finger on his beard.
“No, Mr Gemp.”
“No! Well, I suppose not. I haven’t seen him myself. Mornin’; can’t stop talking here.”
Mr Gemp concluded his gossips invariably in this mode, as if he resented being kept from business, which consisted in going to tell his tale again.
Mrs Pinet was left to pick a few withering leaves from her geraniums, a floricultural act which she performed rather mechanically, for her mind was a good deal occupied by Gemp’s disclosure.
“They’d make a very nice pair, that they would,” she said thoughtfully; “and how would it be managed, I wonder? He couldn’t marry himself, of course, and—oh, Mr Thickens, how you did make me jump!”
“Jump! Didn’t see you jump, Mrs Pinet,” said the clerk, smiling sadly, as if he thought Mrs Pinet’s banking account was lower than it should be.