He looked at me and grinned.
“Well, now, that’s strange you knowing I come from Norfolk! But it’s true. Oh, yes, it is right. I’m a Norfolk man. I was born in Diss. I mind the time my father—”
“Yes, yes,” I interrupted, “we’ll talk about that presently,” for I could see that, once allowed to start on the subject of his relatives and his native county, he would talk on for an hour. “What I have come here this afternoon to talk to you about is Sir Charles Thorold. When was he last here?”
“It will be near two years come Michaelmas,” he answered, without an instant’s hesitation. “And since then I haven’t set eyes on him—I haven’t.”
“And has this house been shut up all the time?”
“Ay, all that time. I mind the time my father used to tell me—”
I damned his father under my breath, and quickly stopped him by asking who paid him his wages.
“My wages? Oh, Sir Charles’ lawyers, Messrs Spink and Peters, of Lincoln’s Inn, pays me my wages. But they are not going to pay me any more. No. They are not going to pay me any more now.”
“Not going to pay you any more? What do you mean?”
“Give me notice to quit, they did, a week ago come Saturday.”