the feet--as Mr. Narkom guided it
across the pavement to the door, suggested either great age or a state
of total blindness: an affliction, by the way, of such recent date that
the sufferer had not yet acquired that air of confidence and that
freedom of step which is Time's kind gift to the sightless.

In a very few moments, however, all doubt as to the sex and the
condition of the muffled figure was set at rest, for, upon the
superintendent and his companion being admitted by Dollops to the
dimly-lit hall of the house, the bent figure straightened, and it was
easy to see that it was not only that of a man but of a man heavily
blindfolded.

"You may take off the bandage now, Major," said Narkom, as the door
closed behind them and Dollops busied himself with readjusting the
fastenings. "We shall find your master in his sitting-room, I suppose,
my embryo Vidocq?"

"Speaking to me, sir? Lor! You ain't never went and forgot my name after
all these months, have you, Mr. Narkom?" said Dollops, not understanding
the allusion. "Yes, sir; you'll find him there, sir, and frisky as a
spring lamb without the peas, bless his heart! Been to the weddin' of
Lady Chepstow and that there Captain Hawksley this afternoon, sir, and
must have enjoyed hisself, the way he's been a-whistling and a-singing
ever since he come home. What a feed they must of had with all their
money! It seems almost a crime to 'a' missed it. Sent wot was left to
the 'orspittles, I hear, and me as flat as an autumn leaf after six
months' pressin' in the family Bible."

"What! Hungry still, Dollops?"

"Hungry, sir? Lor, Mr. Narkom, a flute's a fool to me for hollowness.
I'm that empty my blessed ribs is a-shaking hands with each other; and
ten minutes ago, when I et a pint of winkles, the noise as they made
a-gettin' by 'em, sir, you'd a thought it was somebody a-tumbling
downstairs. But they say as every dog has his day, so I'm always
a-livin' in hopes, sir."

"Hopes? Hopes of what?"

"That _some_ time you'll come for the guv'ner to investigate a crime
wot's been committed in a cookshop, sir--and _then_, wot ho! But," he
added lugubriously, "they never comes to no violent end, them
food-selling jossers; they always dies in their beds like a parcel of
heathen!"

Narkom made no reply. By this time the man he had addressed as "major"
had removed the bandage from his eyes; and, beckoning him to follow, the
superintendent led the way upstairs, leaving Dollops