Mr Hazlit’s usually pale countenance flushed, and he started up.
“Hallo! My man, how came you here?”
The man looked at the door and hesitated in his attempt to reply to so useless a question.
“How comes it that you enter my house and drawing-room without being announced?” asked Mr Hazlit, drawing himself up.
“’Cause I wanted to see you, an’ I found the door open, an’ there warn’t nobody down stair to announce me,” answered the man in a rather surly tone.
“Oh, indeed?—ah,” said Mr Hazlit, drawing out a large silk handkerchief with a flourish, blowing his nose therewith, and casting it carelessly on the table so as to cover the jewel-box. “Well, as you are now ere, pray what have you got to say to me?”
“Your ship the Seagull has bin’ wrecked, sir, on Toosday night on the coast of Wales.”
“I received that unpleasant piece of news on Wednesday morning. What has that to do with your visit?”
“Only that I thought you might want divers for to go to the wreck, an’ I’m a diver—that’s all.”
The man at the door said this in a very surly tone, for the slight tendency to politeness which had begun to manifest itself while the prospect of “a job” was hopeful, vanished before the haughty manner of the merchant.