You ain't in the habit of conversing with a deaf person, are you?"
"Yes," snarls Mr. Smallweed, "my wife's deaf."
"That accounts for your pitching your voice so high.
But as she ain't here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I'll not only be obliged to you, but it'll do you more credit," says Mr. Bucket.
"This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?"
"Name of Chadband," Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a much lower key.
"Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name," says Mr. Bucket, offering his hand, "and consequently feel a liking for it.
Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?"
"And Mrs. Snagsby," Mr. Smallweed introduces.
"Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own," says Mr. Bucket.
"Love him like a brother!
Now, what's up?"
"Do you mean what business have we come upon?" Mr. Smallweed asks, a little dashed by the suddenness of this turn.
"Ah!
You know what I mean.
Let us hear what it's all about in presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet.
Come."
Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment's counsel with him in a whisper.
Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says aloud,
"Yes. You first!" and retires to his former place.
"I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn," pipes Grandfather Smallweed then; "I did business with him.
I was useful to him, and he was useful to me.
Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law.
He was own brother to a brimstone magpie--leastways Mrs. Smallweed.
I come into Krook's property.
I examined all his papers and all his effects.
They was all dug out under my eyes.
There was a bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a shelf in the side of Lady Jane's bed--his cat's bed.
He hid all manner of things away, everywheres.
Mr. Tulkinghorn wanted 'em and got 'em, but I looked 'em over first.
I'm a man of business, and I took a squint at 'em.
They was letters from the lodger's sweetheart, and she signed Honoria.
Dear me, that's not a common name, Honoria, is it?
There's no lady in this house that signs Honoria is there?
Oh, no, I don't think so!
Oh, no, I don't think so!
And not in the same hand, perhaps?
Oh, no, I don't think so!"
Here Mr. Smallweed, seized with a fit of coughing in the midst of his triumph, breaks off to ejaculate,
"Oh, dear me!
Oh, Lord!
I'm shaken all to pieces!"
"Now, when you're ready," says Mr. Bucket after awaiting his recovery, "to come to anything that concerns Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet, here the gentleman sits, you know."
"Haven't I come to it, Mr. Bucket?" cries Grandfather Smallweed.
"Isn't the gentleman concerned yet?
Not with Captain Hawdon, and his ever affectionate Honoria, and their child into the bargain?
Come, then, I want to know where those letters are.
That concerns me, if it don't concern Sir Leicester Dedlock.
I will know where they are.
I won't have 'em disappear so quietly.