Mr Pitskiver—or old Pits, as he was irreverently called by his domestic—came rapidly up the street. He was a little man, between fifty and sixty years of age, with an exceedingly stout body and very thin legs. He was very red in the face, and very short in the neck. A bright blue coat, lively-coloured waistcoat, and light-green silk handkerchief fastened with two sparkling pins, united to each other by a gold chain, check trowsers, and polished French leather boots, composed his attire. He wore an eyeglass though he was not short-sighted, and a beautifully inlaid riding-whip though he never rode. His white muslin pocket-handkerchief hung very prominently out of the breast pocket of his coat, and his hat was set a little on one side of his head, and rested with a coquettish air on the top of the left whisker. What with his prodigious width, and the flourishing of his whip, and the imposing dignity of his appearance altogether, he seemed to fill the street. Several humble pedestrians stepped off the pavement on to the dirty causeway to give him room. Daggles drew up, Snipe slunk back to hold the door, and Mr Pitskiver retired from the eyes of men, and entered his own hall, followed by his retainers.
"If you please, sir," said Snipe, "I have a letter for Miss Sophiar."
"Then don't you think you had better give it her?" replied Mr Pitskiver.
"A gentleman, sir, gave it to me."
"I'll give it you, too," said the master of the mansion, shaking the whip over the astonished Snipe. "What are you bothering me with the ladies' notes for? Any thing for me, Daggles?"
"A few parcels, sir—books, and a couple of pictures."
"No statue? My friend Bristles has deceived me. It was to have been finished to-day. If he gives the first view to the Whalleys, I'll never speak to him again. Nothing else? Then have the phaeton at the door at half past five. I dine at Miss Hendy's, at Hammersmith."
While Mr Pitskiver stepped up stairs, Snipe was going over in his own mind the different grammatical meanings of the words, "I'll give it you." And concluding at last that, in the mouth of his master, it meant nothing but a horsewhipping, he resolved, with the magnanimity of many other virtuous characters who find treachery unproductive, to be true to Miss Sophia, and give her the mysterious note with the greatest possible secrecy.
"Now, donkey," said Daggles, aiding his benevolent advice with a kick that made it nearly superfluous, "get down them kitchen stairs and learn pitch-and-toss, for you haven't brains enough for any thing else—and recollect, you owes me a sovereign; half from master for telling, and half from the long-backed Ticket for keeping mum. You can keep the other to yourself; for the job was well worth a sovereign a-piece."
A knock at the door interrupted the colloquy, and Snipe once more emerged from the lower regions, and admitted the two fair daughters of his master.