"Hilloa! Pison, is you here?" cried a voice at the shop door at this moment.
Johanna started to her feet.
"Who are you?—what do you want?" she cried. "Murder!—murder! He has been foully murdered, I say; I will swear it—I—I—God help me!"
With the little scrap of paper in her hand, she staggered back until she came to the huge shaving-chair, into which she sank with a long-drawn sigh.
"Why, what's the row?" said the man, who was no other than Hector's friend, the ostler, from the inn opposite. "What's the row? Now what an out-and-out willain of a dog you is, Pison, to cut over here like bricks as soon as you can git loose to do so. Don't you know that old Todd is a busting to do you an ill turn some o' these days? and yet you will come, you hidiot."
"Mr. Todd is out," said Johanna.
"Oh, is he, my little man? Well, the devil go with him, that's all I say. Come along, that's a good dog."
Pison only wagged his tail in recognition of the friendly feeling between him and the ostler, and then he kept quite close to Johanna and the waistcoat, which the moment he saw her drop, he laid hold of, and held tight with such an expression as was quite enough to convince the ostler he would not readily give it up again.
"Now what a hanimal you is," cried the ostler. "Whose blessed veskut is that you as got?"
"He found it here," said Johanna. "Did you see his master on the day when he came here?"