Suddenly an idea occurred to him. Slipping his latchkey into his pocket he went out of the house and closed the door softly. Then he rang the bell.
“Is the gen’leman at ’ome?” he asked of Mrs Butt, in a gruff, hoarse voice, as if still engaged in a struggle with a bad cold.
“What gentleman?” asked Mrs Butt eyeing him suspiciously.
“W’y, the gen’leman as sent for me to give ’im boxin’ lessons—Buck or Book, or some sitch name.”
“Brooke, you mean,” said Mrs Butt still suspicious, and interposing her solid person in the doorway.
“Ay, that’s the cove—the gen’leman I mean came here this arternoon to lodge wi’ a Missis Butt or Brute, or suthin’ o’ that sort—air you Mrs Brute?”
“Certainly not,” answered the landlady, with indignation; “but I’m Mrs Butt.”
“Well, it’s all the same. I ax yer parding for the mistake, but there’s sitch a mixin’ up o’ Brutes an’ Brookes, an’ Butts an’ Bucks, that it comes hard o’ a man o’ no edication to speak of to take it all in. This gen’leman, Mr Brute, ’e said if ’e was hout w’en I called I was to wait, an’ say you was to make tea for two, an’ ’ave it laid in the bedroom as ’e’d require the parlour for the mill.”
The man’s evident knowledge of her lodger’s affairs, and his gross stupidity, disarmed Mrs Butt. She would have laughed at his last speech if it had not been for the astounding conclusion. Tea in the bedroom and a mill in the parlour the first night was a degree of eccentricity she had not even conceived of.
“Come in, then, young man,” she said, making way. “You’ll find Mr Brooke in the parlour at his tea.”