“Ah, ha!” said that gentleman, in no way disconcerted; “here I have you, after having been looking for my orphing charmer in every direction but the right one. With your favor I will come inside and have a chat.”
“Excuse me,” said Judith, “but I do not desire to admit visitors.”
“But I am an exception. I’m the man who should have looked after your interests, and would have done it a deal better than others. And so there has been a rumpus, eh? What about?”
“I really beg your pardon, Mr. Scantlebray, but I am engaged and cannot ask you to enter, nor delay conversing with you on the doorstep.”
“Oh, Jimminy! don’t consider me. I’ll stand on the doorstep and talk with you inside. Don’t consider me; go on with what you have to do and let me amuse you. It must be dull and solitary here, but I will enliven you, though I have not my brother’s gifts. Now, Obadiah is a man with a genius for entertaining people. He missed his way when he started in life; he would have made a comic actor. Bless your simple heart, had that man appeared on the boards, he would have brought the house down—”
“I have no doubt whatever he missed his way when he took to keeping an asylum,” said Judith.
“We have all our gifts,” said Scantlebray. “Mine is architecture, and ’pon my honor as a gentleman, I do admire the structure of Othello Cottage, uncommon. You won’t object to my pulling out my tape and taking the plan of the edifice, will you?”
“The house belongs to Captain Coppinger; consult him.”
“My dear orphing, not a bit. I’m not on the best terms with that gent. There lies a tract of ruffled water between us. Not that I have given him cause for offence, but that he is not sweet upon me. He took off my hands the management of your affairs in the valuation business, and let me tell you—between me and you and that post yonder”—he walked in and laid his hand on a beam—“that he mismanaged it confoundedly. He is your husband, I am well aware, and I ought not to say this to you. He took the job into his hands because he had an eye to you, I knew that well enough. But he hadn’t the gift—the faculty. Now I have made all that sort of thing my specialty. How many rooms have you in this house? What does that door lead to?”
“Really, Mr. Scantlebray, you must excuse me; I am busy.”