eing the people put in charge as usual, had appointed a
friend to represent him; and had written to say so. Third, that the
friend had a choice of two Mondays, at a particular time in the evening,
for doing his errand; and that Trottle had accidentally hit on this time,
and on the first of the Mondays, for beginning his own investigations.
Fourth, that the similarity between Trottle's black dress, as servant out
of livery, and the dress of the messenger (whoever he might be), had
helped the error by which Trottle was profiting. So far, so good. But
what was the messenger's errand? and what chance was there that he might
not come up and knock at the door himself, from minute to minute, on that
very evening?

While Trottle was turning over this last consideration in his mind, he
heard the shuffling footsteps come up the stairs again, with a flash of
candle-light going before them. He waited for the woman's coming in with
some little anxiety; for the twilight had been too dim on his getting
into the house to allow him to see either her face or the man's face at
all clearly.

The woman came in first, with the man she called Benjamin at her heels,
and set the candle on the mantel-piece. Trottle takes leave to describe
her as an offensively-cheerful old woman, awfully lean and wiry, and
sharp all over, at eyes, nose, and chin--devilishly brisk, smiling, and
restless, with a dirty false front and a dirty black cap, and short
fidgetty arms, and long hooked finger-nails--an unnaturally lusty old
woman, who walked with a spring in her wicked old feet, and spoke with a
smirk on her wicked old face--the sort of old woman (as Trottle thinks)
who ought to have lived in the dark ages, and been ducked in a
horse-pond, instead of flourishing in the nineteenth century, and taking
charge of a Christian house.

"You'll please to excuse my son, Benjamin, won't you, sir?" says this
witch without a broomstick, pointing to the man behind her, propped
against the bare wall of the dining-room, exactly as he had been propped
against the bare wall of the passage. "He's got his inside dreadful bad
again, has my son Benjamin. And he won't go to bed, and he will follow
me about the house, up-stairs and downstairs, and in my lady's chamber,
as the song says, you know. It's his indisgestion, poor dear, that sours
his temper and makes him so agravating--and indisgestion is a wearing
thing to the best of us, ain't it, sir?"

"Ain't it, sir?"