'Hollo, Foster? Is that you?'
It was excellently done; wonderfully clever. In the sudden rush of my relief I decided that his honorarium should be increased. It showed that he had kept his ears wide open, or he would hardly have known that his visitor's name was Foster. I only hoped that he had gained, from what had passed, some idea of who he was, and what was the position he occupied, without its being necessary for me to drop too plain a hint. However, the agile Mr. Babbacombe proved himself equal to the occasion. The man-of-affairs stood looking down at him before he answered.
'I am glad, my Lord Marquis, that you know me.'
'Know you? Why shouldn't I know you? Hang you, Foster!'
Instinct had supplied Mr. Babbacombe with at least one of Twickenham's habits of speech, his trick of rounding off nearly every sentence he uttered with what one might call, by courtesy, an apostrophe.
'I am sorry, my lord, to see you looking so unwell.'
'I am going to die.'
'I trust, and believe, that it is not so bad with you as that. Where has your lordship been during all these years?'
'Playing with the fires.'
'Playing with the fires?' The lawyer repeated the words as if in doubt as to their meaning. But a glance at the speaker's face made it clear to him that the answer was perhaps not so far out as it might have been. 'Is your lordship married?'