'Suppose I am, sir,' she replied suspiciously. A laundress is like the Hall Porter of a Club: you must not ask her about any of her gentlemen.
'I have called to see Mr. Edmund Gray on very important business. I found his door shut. Will you kindly tell me at what hours he is generally in his Chambers?'
She shook her head: but she held out her hand.
The young gentleman placed half a sovereign in her palm. Her fingers closed over the coin. She clutched it, and she hid it away in some secret fold of her ragged dress. There is no woman so ragged, so dropping to pieces with shreds and streamers and tatters, but she can find a safe hiding-place, somewhere in her rags, for a coin or for anything else that is small or precious.
'I never tell tales about my gentlemen,' she said, 'especially when they are young and handsome, like you. A pore laundress has eyes and ears and hands, but she hasn't got a tongue. If she had, there might be terrible, terrible trouble. Oh! dear—yes. But Mr. Gray isn't a young gentleman. He's old, and it isn't the same thing.'
'Then,' said George, 'how and when can I find him?'
'I was coming to that. You can't find him. Sometimes he comes, and sometimes he doesn't come.'
'Oh! He doesn't live in the rooms, then!'
'No. He doesn't live in the rooms. He uses the rooms sometimes.'
'What does he use them for?'