It's killing me, that's what it is.
Some night I shall be murdered, and all that plate taken away. It ain't
safe, and it's cruel to a man to ask him to take charge of it."

He did not speak for a few minutes.

"What am I to do, then, Burdon?"

"Some people send their plate to the bank, Sir John."

"Yes," he says; "some people do a great many things that I do not intend
to do.--There; I shall not take any notice of what you said."

"But you must, please, Sir John; I couldn't stay like this."

"Be patient for a few days, and I'll have something done to relieve
you."

I went down-stairs very uneasy, and Sir John went out; and next day,
feeling quite poorly, after waking up ten times in the night, thinking I
heard people breaking in, as there'd been a deal of burglary in
Bloomsbury about that time, I got up quite thankful I was still alive;
and directly after breakfast, the wine-merchant's cart came from Saint
James's Street with fifty dozen of sherry, as we really didn't want.
Sir John came down and saw to the wine being put in bins; and then he
had all the wine brought from the inner cellar into the outer cellar,
both being next my pantry, with a door into the passage just at the foot
of the kitchen stairs.

"That's a neat job, Burdon," said Sir John, as we stood in the far
cellar all among the sawdust, and the place looking dark and damp, with
its roof like the vaults of a church, and stone flag floor, but with
every bin empty.

"Going to lay down some more wine here, Sir John?" I said; but he
didn't answer, only stood with a candle in the arched doorway, which was
like a passage six feet long, opening from one cellar into the other.
Then he went up-stairs, and I locked up the cellar and put the keys in
my drawer.

"He always was eccentric before her ladyship died," I said to myself;
"and now he's getting worse."

I saw it again next morning, for Sir John gave orders, sudden-like, for
everybody to pack off to the country-house down by Dorking; and of
course everybody had to go, cook and housekeeper and all; and just as I
was ready to start, I got word to stay.

Sir John went off to his club, and I stayed alone in that old house in
Bloomsbury, with the great drops of perspiration dripping off me every
time I heard a noise, and feeling sometimes as if I could stand it no
longer; but just as it was getting dusk, he came back, and in his short
abrupt way, he says: "Now, Burdon, we'll go to work."

I'd no