"He towld me his name was Draper, and sure that's all I know about him." "Will you be kind enough, like a good girl, to skip down-stairs and ask the gentleman to send up his card?" said Handy in his most persuasive manner. The lady who officiated as menial evidently did not relish another journey up and down-stairs, but Handy's winning way and manner of appealing to her had the desired effect. She condescended to oblige, but with a look, however, that might readily be mistaken for one other than pleasure over the job, with an accompanying murmur of words that sounded very much like "people puttin' on airs." "Why, Handy, you know very well who that is down at the door," said Fogg, raising himself in bed. "Know! Well, I should smile! Why, of course I know. But, my boy, I need a little time to get things straightened out before we receive visitors. Lie down and keep quiet. I'm running this show. These _Melnotte_ duds will have to go to the wash. Ten to one that's what Draper has called for. That fellow has an eye as sharp as a hawk." "What has that to do with the case?" "This, if you are anxious to know. Draper would get on to that red ink stain quicker than a wink. You couldn't fool that gentleman on ink for blood. Just cast your eagle eye over it." He held the blouse up for inspection. "Why, it looks more like cranberry sauce on a jamboree than human gore. I will stow this away in the closet, and now bear in mind it has gone to the wash." "Oh, all right!" "Come in." This in answer to a knock at the door, and Bedelia, for such was the lady attendant's name, reappeared. "The man down at the door below sez as how he has no card wid him, but that yez knows him very well already. He sez he's a customer." "A what?" yelled Handy. "A customer," shouted back Bedelia. "A customer," echoed Handy, and then in his most agreeable manner continued: "Now, my gentle friend, for I know you are gentle, and therefore must be a friend, did not the man in the gap below tell you he was a costumer, and not a customer? Think, for the difference between the two is of some degree of importance." "Well, sur, I may not be as well up in the new-fangled ways of spakin' as some other people are. Begor! with yer cawn'ts an' shawn'ts, an' chawnces, an' the divil only knows what in the way of pronunciayshon, a dacint, hard-workin' gerl can't make out half what's said nowadays. You call the man down-stairs wan thing an' I call him another, but both of them are the same man. Arrah! what's the matther wid yez, at all, at all?" With this withering invective, Bedelia looked as if she could annihilate Handy. The veteran in an amusingly polite manner arose and bowed. "All right, Bedelia, and if it's all the same to you, you may as well waltz the customer up."