It is scarcely necessary to explain that this inquiry was employed by Mr. Sharp as a plausible method of accounting for his calling, and to pave the way for something else. He had no particular choice in the name, but thought Dupont would be as uncommon as any.
“Yes,” was the unexpected reply of Mrs. Morton, “we have a lodger of that name. I believe he is in. Will you step in and see him, sir?”
Unprepared for this answer, Mr. Sharp was for the moment undecided how to act. Being sufficiently quick-witted, however, he soon devised a way to extricate himself from his embarrassment.
“Poor man!” said he with a gentle sigh; “he’s much to be pitied.”
“Pitied!” echoed the landlady, opening wide her eyes in astonishment. “Why?”
“To a sensitive mind,” continued Mr. Sharp, in a tone of mild pathos, “bodily deformity must be a great drawback to one’s comfort and happiness.”
“Deformity!” repeated the landlady in increased surprise.
“Yes, Mr. Dupont is a humpback, is he not?”
“A humpback!” returned Mrs. Morton, in a tone of some asperity. “You are quite mistaken, sir; I have no humpback among my boarders.”
“Then it cannot be the man I mean,” said the lawyer, rejoiced to have got out of the scrape so cleverly. “I beg ten thousand pardons for having put you to so much trouble.”