“Dear me! I do believe, sir, that I have lost one of my prized wrenches down your register.” He got on his knees and peered anxiously through [[160]]the iron grating. “I seem wholly unable to see it, sir. But I quite assure you that I heard it fall.”
The lock tender was grinning at the seemingly distressed one.
“What be you tryin’ to do?—imitate my cat?”
“Dear me! What shall I do?”
“Windbubbler, you’re dumb, if I must say so.”
“I beg pardon?…”
“D-u-m-b,” the lock tender spelt. “I mean you don’t know much, outside of a few pianny tricks.”
“My dear sir!…”
The householder waggled in disgust that the other shouldn’t have remembered what he had said about being able to get into the register pipe from the cellar.
“Wal, I suppose we’ve got to have all kinds of people in this world, simple an’ otherwise.… I’ll git your wrench fur you.”