"Give him the headquarters quiz," says I. "Tell him you come straight from mother and sisters, and that Ferdy's got to be found."
"I hardly feel equal to doing just that," says the Bishop in his mild way. "Now if you could only——"
"Why, sure!" says I. "It'd do me good to take a whirl out of that Englishman. I'll make him give up!"
He's a bird though, that Kupps. I hadn't talked with him two minutes before I would have bet my pile he knew all about where Ferdy was roostin' and what he was up to; but when it come to draggin' out the details, you might just as well have been tryin' to pry up a pavin' stone with a fountain pen. Was Ferdy in town, or out of town, and when would he be back? Kupps couldn't say. He wouldn't even tell how long it was since he had seen Ferdy last. And say, you know how pig headed one of them hen brained Cockneys can be? I feels my collar gettin' tight.
"Look here, Hiccups!" says I. "You——"
"Kupps, sir," says he. "Thomas Kupps is my full nyme, sir."
"Well, Teacups, then, if that suits you better," says I. "You don't seem to have got it into your head that the Bishop ain't just buttin' in here for the fun of the thing. This matter of retrievin' Ferdy is serious. Now you're sure he didn't leave any private messages, or notes or anything of that kind?"
"Nothink of the sort, sir; nothink whatever," says Kupps.
"Well, you just show us up to his rooms," says I, "and we'll have a look around for ourselves. Eh, Bishop?"
"Perhaps it would be the best thing to do," says the Bishop.