"Is it tender?" enquired Mrs. Trapes anxiously. "Heaven pity that butcher if it ain't! Is it tasty, kind of?"
"It's delicious," nodded her lodger. "Really, Hell's Kitchen seems to suit me; I eat and sleep like a new man!"
"So you ain't lived here long, Mr. Geoffrey?" queried Mrs. Trapes, eagle-eyed.
"Not long enough to—er—sigh for pastures new. Don't go, Mrs. Trapes, I love to hear folks talk; sit down and tell me tales of dead kings and—er—I mean, converse of our neighbours, will you?"
"I will so, an' thank ye kindly, Mr. Geoffrey, if you don't mind me sucking a occasional candy?"
"Pray do, Mrs. Trapes," he said heartily; whereupon, having fetched her chocolates, Mrs. Trapes ensconced herself in the easy chair and opening the box, viewed its contents with glistening eyes.
"You're an Englishman, ain't you?" she enquired after a while, munching luxuriously.
"No, but my mother was born in England."
"You don't say!" exclaimed Mrs. Trapes. "So was I—born in the Old Kent Road, Mr. Geoffrey. I came over to N' York thirty long years ago as cook general to Hermy Chesterton's ma. When she went and married again, I left her an' got married myself to Trapes—a foreman, Mr. Geoffrey, with a noble 'eart as 'ad wooed me long!" Here Mrs. Trapes opened the candy box again and, after long and careful deliberation, selected a chocolate with gentle, toil-worn fingers, and putting it in her mouth, sighed her approbation. "They sure are good!" she murmured. "But talkin' o' Hermy Chesterton's ma," she went on after a blissful interval, "I been wondering where you came to meet that b'y Arthur?"
"Ah, Mrs. Trapes," sighed Ravenslee, leaning back in his chair and shaking a rueful head, "you touch on gloomy matters. As the story books say, 'thereby hangs a tale'—the dismal tale of a miserable wretch whose appetite was bad, whose sleep was worse, and whose temper was worst of all—oh, a very wretched wretch indeed!"