"Then the Cunnle says, sir, as the singin' birds is getting a perfect nuisance; but the squirrel and the ferrets, he says as he don't mind. But now I'm speaking, sir, I must say as I do; for I put it to you, sir, are they sootable for a first-floor in Regent Street? I know what gents is, sir, having lived in good families till the wife and me retired on her savings and took to letting; and I must say, sir, as I never in all my experience see anything like this here before; while the worst of it is as we never know what's coming next. It drives my missus a most wild, it do indeed, sir, to see that little foxy old chap with the thick boot come jigging and grinning up to the door as if he'd got a hingin inside to work him, and now bringing a bird, or a hanimal, or something else to wherrit us." "Nearly done?" growled Lionel, angrily. "Not quite, sir," said the landlord, desperately; for he had been lectured into speaking to his perverse lodger, and he knew that the ear of his lecturer was at the keyhole. "You see, sir, my wife says as we must have an alteration. She says only last night, `James,' she says-- it was after we was in bed, sir--`how do we know what Mr Redgrave'll be a havin' next? He's a makin' a reg'lar Wombwell's show of that drawing-room, as we shall have to re-furnish as soon as ever he's gone, what with tobacco-smoke, dirty feet, and wild beasts. We shall be having a helephant or a monkey next; and with a monkey in the house,' she says, `I won't put up. For, if there is a ojus thing as I can't abear, it's a monkey. What does a gent like him, with his father a barrynit, want with tortushes a-scrawming about the room, and under your feet, and giving you a turn as sends cold shudders all down your back?'" "Now, look, here!" burst out Lionel; "I'm not going either to stand or to believe all this, so I tell you. You want to raise the rent, Stiff. Now that's it." "Which it just ain't nothink of the sort, Mr Redgrave!" exclaimed a corroded voice--sharp, worn, and acid--and a new actor appeared on the scene, in the person of Mrs Stiff, the landlord's lady. "I wonder, sir, at a gentleman--a nobleman's son--bemeaning himself to insult honest people in this way. We don't want the rent raised, sir; but what we do want is a halteration, or else our rooms empty, or let to some one else, as there's plenty of gents as would be glad to have them; though, if you was to go, no one would be sorrier than I should, to lose you, sir." Lionel made a gesture of dismay, throwing himself farther back upon his lounge, with every token of succumbing to this fresh attack, as he stared grimly at the ceiling.