"I'm going with the master on some law business," said Mudd. "Make sure and bolt the front door—and lock up the plate."
It was the third or fourth time he had given her these instructions.
"He's out of his mind," said Mrs. Jukes, as she watched him go. She wasn't far wrong.
Mudd had been used to a rut—a rut forty years deep. His light and pleasant duties carried him easily through the day. Of evenings when Simon was dining out he would join a social circle in the private room of a highly respectable tavern close by, smoke his pipe, drink two hot gins, and depart for home at ten-thirty. When Simon was in he could smoke his pipe and read his paper in his own private room. He had five hundred pounds laid by in the bank—no stocks and shares for Mudd—and he would vary his evening amusements by counting the toll of his money.
It is easy to be seen that this jolt out of the rut was, literally, a jolt.
At the Charing Cross Hotel he found the room allotted to him, deposited his things and, disdaining the servants' quarters, went out to a tavern to read the paper.
He reckoned Simon might not return till late, and he reckoned right.