"Does not Mr. Dingwell live here?"
"There was a gentleman, please, sir, with a name like that. Go back, child," she said, sharply to Lucy Maria, who was peeping in the background, and who might not be edified, perhaps, by the dialogue. "Beg parding, sir," she continued, as the child disappeared; "they are so tiresome! There was an old gentleman lodging here, sir, please, which his name was like that I do remember."
Cleve Verney did not know what to think.
"Is there anyone in the house who knows Mr. Dingwell? I've come to be of use to him; perhaps he could see me. Will you say Mr. Verney?"
"Mr.—what, sir, please?"
"Verney—here's my card; perhaps it is better."
As the conversation continued, Miss Rumble had gradually come more and more forward, closing the door more and more as she did so, so that she now confronted Cleve upon the step, and could have shut the door at her back, had he made any attempt to get in; and she called over her shoulder to Lucy Maria, and whispered something, and gave her, I suppose, the card; and in a minute more Miss Rumble opened the door wide, and showed "the gentleman" upstairs, and told him on the lobby she hoped he would not be offended, but that she had such positive orders as to leave her no choice; and that in fact Mr. Dingwell was in the drawing-room, and would be happy to see him, and almost at the same moment she threw open the door and introduced him, with a little courtesy, and—
"This way, please, sir; here's the gentleman, please, sir."
There he did find Mr. Dingwell, smoking a cigar, in his fez, slippers, and pea-green silk dressing-gown, with a cup of black coffee on the little table beside him, his Times and a few magazines there also. He looked, in vulgar parlance, "seedy," like an old fellow who had been raking the night before, and was wofully tired, and in no very genial temper.
"Will you excuse an old fellow, Mr. Verney, and take a chair for yourself? I'm not very well to-day. I suppose, from your note, you thought I had quitted London. It was not to be expected so old a plant should take root; but it's sometimes not worth moving 'em again, and they remain where they are, to wither, ha, ha, ha!"