"A what?" asked Mr. Wycherly, this time thoroughly mystified.
"A general, that's what she is if there's no more kep'. You won't get no cook-'ousekeeper unless she's to 'ave 'er meals along with you, and a little girl to do the rough work."
"She can't possibly have her meals with me," cried Mr. Wycherly, crimson at the very thought. "It would be most unpleasant—for both of us."
"Then as I said it's a general you wants."
"And have you upon your books any staid and respectable young woman—preferably an orphan—" Mr. Wycherly interpolated, remembering Montagu's suggestion, "who could come to us at once?"
"Not, so to speak, to-day, I 'aven't; but they often comes in of a Monday, and I'll let you know. I could send 'er along; it isn't far."
The ledger was shut with a bang as an intimation that the interview was at an end, and Mr. Wycherly fared forth into the street with heated brow and a sense that, in spite of his heroism in braving so dreadful a person, he was not much further on his quest. "Monday, she said," he kept repeating to himself, "and to-day is only Thursday."
When he got back to Holywell, the boys were standing at the front door on the lookout for him. They rushed towards him exclaiming in delighted chorus: "We've got a woman. We thought we'd ask at the King's Arms, and they told us of one."
"What? A servant?" asked Mr. Wycherly with incredulous joy.
"No, no, a day-body. The boots knew about her; she lives down Hell Lane, just about opposite."