"And what does he do?" asked Mr. Jones, not satisfied with this brief account.
"If you was to stay here from now till to-morrow morning," surlily replied Mr. Smithson, "you'd know no more from me."
Mr. Jones whistled, and walked off, with his hands in his pockets. He had been guilty of the unpardonable sin of not purchasing a shilling's worth of Mr. Smithson's goods since he had come to the neighbourhood, and of course Mr. Smithson felt aggrieved.
"Well, father," eagerly exclaimed Mary, as soon as she saw her father; "who is he? What is he? What does he do? Is he married—"
"Bless the girl!" interrupted Mr. Jones, "how am I to know all that? He'll pay his rent, and he's respectable, and more don't concern us; and it's time for you to go to Miss Gray, ain't it?"
With which limited information Mary had, perforce, to remain satisfied.
The new lodger proved to be what Mr. Jones graphically termed "a very buttoned-up sort of chap;" a tall, dark, silent, and reserved man, who paid his rent every week, went out early every morning, came home at ten every night, and vanished every Sunday.
We have already hinted that Mr. Jones had a spice of curiosity; this mystery teazed him, and by dint of waylaying his guest both early and late, he succeeded in ascertaining that he had recently left his situation in a large house in the city, and that he was in search of another. No more did Mr. Joseph Saunders choose to communicate; but this was enough.
For some time, the poor grocer had had a strong suspicion that he was not a very good business man; that he wanted something; energy, daring, he knew not what, but something he was sure it was.
"Now," he thought, "if I could secure such a young fellow as that; it would be a capital thing for me, and in time not a bad one for him. For suppose, that he becomes a Co., and marries Mary, why the house is his, that's all. Now I should like to know what man in the city will say to him: 'Saunders, I'll make a Co. of you, and you shall have my daughter.'"