There remains but one other inhabitant of this house who comes into my story and that was a certain old gentleman living in the rooms immediately over mine. In fact, we two were the only lodgers, and so, having few friends as yet, I began to feel some interest in him.
I had heard him referred to always as “the General,” and the few glimpses I had had of him confirmed this title. Figure to yourself an erect man of middle height, white-mustached, quick in his step, with an eye essentially military—that is to say, expressionless in repose, keen when aroused—and do you not allow that, if he is not a general, he at least ought to be?
“Who is this general?” I asked Halfred one day.
“As rummy a old customer as ever was, sir,” said Halfred. “Been here for three years and never 'ad a visitor inside his room all that time, exceptin' one lady.”
“A lady?” I said. “His—”
“Don't know, sir. Some says one thing, some says another. Kind o' a hexotic, I calls 'im, sir. Miss Titch she thinks he's 'ad a affair of the 'eart; I think he booses same as a old pal o' mine what kept a chemist's shop in Stepney used to. My friend he locks 'isself up in the back room and puts away morphine and nicotine and strychnine and them things by the 'alf-pint. 'Ole days at it he were, sir, and all the time the small boys a-sneak-ing cough-drops, and tooth-brushes for to make feathers for their 'ats when playin' at soldiers, and when the doctor he sees 'im at last he says nothing but a hepileptic 'ome wouldn't do 'im any good.”
“You think, then, the General drinks?” I said.
“Either that or makes counterfeit coins, sir,” said Halfred, with an ominous shake of his bullet head.
I was quite aware of my Halfred's partiality for the melodramatic. Nevertheless there was certainly something unusual in my neighbor's conduct that excited my interest considerably. For I confess I am one of those who are apt to be blind towards the mysteries of the obvious and the miracles of every day, and to revel in the romance of the singular.