"Dead? you don't mean to say that Oldfield's dead!"
"So I was informed last night by two men, one named Nash, and the other Morgan. Nash introduced himself as Oldfield's solicitor, and Morgan said he was his sole executor. A more unclubable man than Morgan I never met; he's not even a good imitation of a gentleman; how Oldfield came to appoint him as his sole executor is beyond my comprehension."
"What can you expect from a pill-man? I should take anything as a matter of course from the proprietor of Peter Piper's Popular Pills."
"They're a sound, wholesome medicine."
"Of course; we won't flog a dead donkey. And when did Oldfield die? and what of? did you know that he was ill?"
"I hadn't the ghost of a notion. And the best--or rather the worst--of it is that Messrs. Nash and Morgan seem to take it for granted that I knew all about it; especially the man Morgan."
"Why should he do that? And what's the harm if he does?"
Clifford was drumming on the table with his finger-tips, nervously; as a rule he was one of the coolest and most collected of men; now his embarrassment was obvious.
"That's one of the charms of the position; showing that one man may know another for a long time, and yet know nothing at all about him. According to the two gentlemen Joseph Oldfield lived a double life, and his name wasn't Oldfield at all."
"There you are again, the pill-man! It at least looks as if he had the saving grace of being ashamed to have it known that he was connected with his own pills."