“Now,” said Mr Hazlit, sitting down on a broken chair in a very shabby little room, and wiping his heated brow, “what is the meaning of all this, Mr Timms?”
“Well, sir,” answered Timms, with a deprecatory air, “I’m sorry, sir, it should ’ave ’appened just w’en you was a-goin’ to favour me with the unexpected honour of a wisit; but the truth is, sir, I couldn’t ’elp it. This ’ere sc— man is my landlord, sir, an’ ’e wouldn’t wait another day for ’is rent, sir, though I told ’im he was pretty sure o’ ’avin it in a week or so, w’en I ’ad time to c’lect my outstandin’ little bills—”
“More nor that, sur,” burst in the impatient and indignant Rooney, “he would ’ave gone into that there room, sur,—if I may miscall a dark closet by that name—an’ ’ave pulled the bed out from under Mrs Timms, who’s a-dyin’, sur, if I ’adn’t chanced to come in, sur, an’ kick the spalpeen into the street, as you see’d.”
“For w’ich you’ll smart yet,” growled the landlord, who stood in a dishevelled heap like a bad boy in a corner.
“How much rent does he owe you?” asked Mr Hazlit of the landlord.
“That’s no business o’ yours,” replied the man, sulkily.
“If I were to offer to pay it, perhaps you’d allow that it was my business.”
“So I will w’en you offers.”
“Well, then, I offer now,” said Mr Hazlit, taking out his purse, and pouring a little stream of sovereigns into his hand. “Have you the receipt made out?”
The landlord made no reply, but, with a look of wonder at his interrogator, drew a small piece of dirty paper from his pocket and held it out. Mr Hazlit examined it carefully from beginning to end.