me?" asked Lionel.

"No, he's not at home, sir," replied Master Cheese, as if the fact were
some personal grievance of his own. "Here's all the patients, all the
making up of the physic left in my charge, and I'd like to know how I am
to do it? I can't go out to fifty folks at a time?"

"And so you expedite the matter by not going to one! Where is Mr. Jan?"

"He was fetched out in the night to that beautiful Ally Hook," grumbled
Master Cheese. "It's a shame, sir, folks are saying, for him to give his
time to _her_. I had to leave my warm bed and march out to that fanciful
Mother Ellis, through it, who's always getting the spasms. And I had
about forty poor here this morning, and couldn't get a bit of
comfortable breakfast for 'em. Miss Deb, she never kept my bacon warm,
or anything; and somebody had eaten the meat out of the veal pie when I
got back. Jan _will_ have those horrid poor here twice a week, and if I
speak against it, he tells me to hold my tongue."

"But is Mr. Jan not back yet from Hook's?"

"No, sir, he's not," was the resentful response. "He has never come back
at all since he went, and that was at four o'clock this morning. If he
had gone to cut off all the arms in the house, he couldn't have been
longer! And I wish him joy of it! He'll get no breakfast. They have got
nothing for themselves but bread and water."

Lionel left his draught an open question, and departed. As he turned
into the principal street again, he saw Master Dan Duff at the door of
his mother's shop. A hasty impulse prompted Lionel to question the boy
of what he saw that unlucky night; or believed he saw. He crossed over;
but Master Dan retreated inside the shop. Lionel followed him.

"Well, Dan! Have you overcome the fright of the cow yet?"

"'Twarn't a cow, please, sir," replied Dan, timidly. "'Twere a ghost."

"Whose ghost?" returned Lionel.

Dan hesitated. He stood first on one leg, then on the other.

"Please, sir, 'twarn't Rachel's," said he, presently.

"Whose then?" repeated Lionel.

"Please, sir, mother said I warn't to tell you. Roy, he said, if I told
it to anybody, I should be took and hanged."

"But I say that you are to tell me," said Lionel. And his pleasant tone,
combined, perhaps, with the fact that he was Mr. Verner, effected more
with Dan Duff than his mother's sharp tone or Roy's threatening one.

"Please, sir," glancing round to make sure that his mother was not
within hearing, "'twere Mr. Fred Mass