“Yes, sir. In short it was through him I found out where you wor, sir. I have had the wret agen you for some time, but couldn't make you off, till my friend says I must carry a note from him to you.”
“Where is the note?” inquired Tom.
“Not ready yet, sir. It's po'thry he's writin'—something 'pithy' he said, and 'lame' too. I dunna how a thing could be pithy and lame together, but them potes has hard words at command.”
“Then you came away without the note?”
“Yis, sir. As soon as I found out where you wor stopping I ran off directly on Mr. M'Kail's little business. You'll excuse the liberty, sir; but we must all mind our professions; though, indeed, sir, if you b'lieve me, I'd rather nab a rhyme than a gintleman any day; and if I could get on the press I'd quit the shoulder-tapping profession.”
Tom cast an eye of wonder on the bailiff, which the latter comprehended at once; for with habitual nimbleness he could nab a man's thoughts as fast as his person. “I know what you're thinkin', sir—could one of my profession pursue the muses? Don't think, sir, I mane I could write the 'laders' or the pollitik'l articles, but the criminal cases, sir—the robberies and offinces—with the watchhouse cases—together with a little po'thry now and then. I think I could be useful, sir, and do better than some of the chaps that pick up their ha'pence that way. But here's my place, sir—my little bower of repose.”
He knocked at the door of a small tumble-down house in a filthy lane, the one window it presented in front being barred with iron. Some bolts were drawn inside, and though the man who opened the door was forbidding in his aspect, he did not refuse to let Tom in. The portal was hastily closed and bolted after they had entered. The smell of the house was pestilential—the entry dead dark.
“Give me your hand, sir,” said the bailiff, leading Tom forward. They ascended some creaking stairs, and the bailiff, fumbling for some time with a key at a door, unlocked it and shoved it open, and then led in his captive. Tom saw a shabby-genteel sort of person, whose back was towards him, directing a letter.
“Ah, Goggins!” said the writer, “you're come back in the nick of time. I have finished now, and you may take the letter to Mister Durfy.”
“You may give it to him yourself, sir,” replied Goggins, “for here he is.”