ed
determined that they should hear him:

'I know, sir--I see how things were with you with 'arf a glance; but
afore we go any further, it's right you should know 'oo I am and all
about me. Jest 'ear what I'm goin' to tell you, for it's somethink out
of the common way, though gospel-truth. It's a melinkly reflection for a
man in my station of life, but'--and here he lowered his voice to a
solemn pitch--'I've never set foot inside of this 'ere 'ouse without
somethink 'appens more or less immejit. Ah, it's true, though. Seems
almost like as if I brought a fatality in along o' me. Don't you
interrupt; you wait till I'm done, and see if I'm talking at random or
without facks to support me. Well, _fust_ time as ever I was sent for
'ere was in regard to drains, as they couldn't flush satisfactory. I did
my work and come away. Not three weeks arter, Miss Rummles, the heldest
gell, was took ill with typhoid. Never the same young lady again--nor
yet she never won't be neither, not if she lives to a nundered. "Nothing
very hodd about _that_?" says you. Wait a bit. Next time, it was the
kitching copper as had got all furred up like. I tinkered that up to
rights, and come away. Well, afore I'd even made out my account, that
identical copper blew up and scalded the cook dreadful! "Coppers will
play these games," you sez. All right, then; but you let me finish.
Third time there was a flaw in one of the gas-brackets in the spare
room. I soddered it up and I come away. Soon arterwards, a day or two as
it might be, Mrs. Rummles 'ad 'er mar a-stayin' with her, and the old
lady slep in that very room, and was laid up weeks! "Curus," says I,
when I come to 'ear of it, "_very_ curus!" and it set me a-thinkin'.
Last time but one--'ere, lemme see--that was a bell-'anging job, I
_think_--no, I'm wrong, it was drains agen, so it were--drains it was
agen. And the _next_ thing I 'eard was that Mrs. Rummles was a-layin' at
death's door with the diffthery! The last time--ah, I recklect well, I
was called in to see if somethink wasn't wrong with the ballcock in the
top cistin. I see there _was_ somethink, and I come away as usual. That
day week, old Mr. Rummles was took with a fit on the floor in the back
droring-room, which broke up the 'ouse!

'Now, I think, as fair-minded and unprejudiced parties, you'll agree
with me that there was something more'n hordinary coinside-ency in all
that. I declare to you!' avowed the plumber, with a gloomy relish