The three newcomers mounted the rotten wooden steps to the stoop. Mr. Pigworth left his group of auditors, came forward, and received them with the affability of a retired statesman.
"The landlord?" asked Tiffles.
"I keep the hotel," said Pigworth, with a smile which intimated that he kept it for amusement rather than profit.
"Room and board for three of us?" asked Tiffles.
"Certainly," said Pigworth, with the air of a man who was doing them a favor. "Ef you want only one apartment, I can give you the one occupied last week by the Hon. Mr. Podhammer. You have heard of him?"
"Of course," responded Tiffles, to cut short the conversation.
"He spoke in Washington Hall, there, on the Cons'tution. He is smart on some things, but THE CONS'TUTION he doesn't understand--not a word of it. I told him so."
Tiffles was about to ask why, if the Hon. Mr. Podhammer didn't understand a word of the Constitution, he had the audacity to lecture on it; when he remembered that it was no uncommon thing for lecturers to talk of what they don't understand--himself of Africa, for instance.
"Be good enough to show us the room," said he.
"I say, Judge" (Pigworth, being a justice of the peace, was universally styled thus), cried a voice from the group, "do you, or do you not, indorse my sentiments?"