now?'

'Master of the workhouse,' rejoined Mr. Bumble, slowly and
impressively, to check any undue familiarity the stranger might
otherwise assume. 'Master of the workhouse, young man!'

'You have the same eye to your own interest, that you always had, I
doubt not?' resumed the stranger, looking keenly into Mr. Bumble's
eyes, as he raised them in astonishment at the question.

'Don't scruple to answer freely, man. I know you pretty well, you see.'

'I suppose, a married man,' replied Mr. Bumble, shading his eyes with
his hand, and surveying the stranger, from head to foot, in evident
perplexity, 'is not more averse to turning an honest penny when he can,
than a single one. Porochial officers are not so well paid that they
can afford to refuse any little extra fee, when it comes to them in a
civil and proper manner.'

The stranger smiled, and nodded his head again: as much to say, he had
not mistaken his man; then rang the bell.

'Fill this glass again,' he said, handing Mr. Bumble's empty tumbler to
the landlord. 'Let it be strong and hot. You like it so, I suppose?'

'Not too strong,' replied Mr. Bumble, with a delicate cough.

'You understand what that means, landlord!' said the stranger, drily.

The host smiled, disappeared, and shortly afterwards returned with a
steaming jorum: of which, the first gulp brought the water into Mr.
Bumble's eyes.

'Now listen to me,' said the stranger, after closing the door and
window. 'I came down to this place, to-day, to find you out; and, by
one of those chances which the devil throws in the way of his friends
sometimes, you walked into the very room I was sitting in, while you
were uppermost in my mind. I want some information from you. I don't
ask you to give it for nothing, slight as it is. Put up that, to begin
with.'

As he spoke, he pushed a couple of sovereigns across the table to his
companion, carefully, as though unwilling that the chinking of money
should be heard without. When Mr. Bumble had scrupulously examined the
coins, to see that they were genuine, and had put them up, with much
satisfaction, in his waistcoat-pocket, he went on:

'Carry your memory back--let me see--twelve years, last winter.'

'It's a long time,' said Mr. Bumble. 'Very good. I've done it.'

'The scene, the workhouse.'

'Good!'

'And the time, night.'

'Yes.'

'And the place, the crazy hole, wherever it was, in which miserable
drabs brought forth the life and he