"Your friend the old pensioner, Mr. Sharkley," replied the other, "and main noisy he be."
"Friend?" said Sharkley nervously; "he ain't a friend of mine—only a kind of client in a humble way."
"I wouldn't have given such, house-room; but trade is bad—the coaches are all off the road now, and business be all taken by the rail to Launceston, Bodmin, and elsewhere."
"Has he been drinking?"
"Yes."
"Pretty freely?" asked Sharpley hopefully.
"Well—yes; we're licensed to get drunk on the premises."
"Come," thought the emissary, "this is encouraging! His intellect," he added aloud, "is weak; after a time he grows furious and is apt to accuse people of robbing him, especially of certain papers of which he imagines himself the custodian; it is quite a monomania."
"A what, sur?"
"A monomania."