“Just the very thing I wanted to talk to you about,” returned the lady—“that lodger o’ mine.”
“Ah! don’t pay, don’t he? You just hand him over to me. I’ll soon have it out of him.”
“It’s not that,” explained Mrs. Postwhistle. “If a Saturday morning ’appened to come round as ’e didn’t pay up without me asking, I should know I’d made a mistake—that it must be Friday. If I don’t ’appen to be in at ’alf-past ten, ’e puts it in an envelope and leaves it on the table.”
“Wonder if his mother has got any more like him?” mused Mr. Clodd. “Could do with a few about this neighbourhood. What is it you want to say about him, then? Merely to brag about him?”
“I wanted to ask you,” continued Mrs. Postwhistle, “’ow I could get rid of ’im. It was rather a curious agreement.”
“Why do you want to get rid of him? Too noisy?”
“Noisy! Why, the cat makes more noise about the ’ouse than ’e does. ’E’d make ’is fortune as a burglar.”
“Come home late?”
“Never known ’im out after the shutters are up.”
“Gives you too much trouble then?”