"I heard her say the words quite plainly, but I could not believe my ears. The words are quite plain on this letter, though they are written in pencil, but I cannot believe my eyes. Read what is on this envelope, and I shall know whether I have lost my reason or not. That's where she says the child is to go. This is the old friend she says will look after the little boy!" She handed the letter she held in her hand to her friend. Mrs. Pearse read: "Francis Bramwell, Esq., Boland's Ait, South London Canal." CHAPTER IV. THE MISSING MAN. It was near ten o'clock that night before Alfred Layard and his sister gave up trying to get their new home into order. Even then much remained to be done, but Mrs. Grainger, the charwoman who had been assisting Hetty all day, had to go home to prepare supper for her husband, and when she was gone the brother and sister sat down to their own. Alfred Layard was employed in the gasworks. His duties did not oblige him to be at business early; but they kept him there until late in the evening. He had a very small salary, just no more than enough to live on in strict economy. He had rented a little cottage during his brief married life, and the modest furniture in the room where the brother and sister now sat at supper had been bought for his bride's home out of his savings. Just as his lease of the cottage expired he heard of this house, and that the owner or agent would be glad to let it at a rent almost nominal on the condition of two rooms being reserved and kept in order for him. The place just suited Layard. It was within a short distance of the gashouse, and he calculated that the arrangement would save him twenty pounds a year. "Well, Hetty," said he, with one of his surprisingly pleasant smiles, as the supper went on, "how do you like the life of a lodging-house keeper?" "So far I like it very much indeed, although I have had no chance of pillage yet." "Never mind the pillage for a while. I must see if there is any handbook published on the subject of the 'Lodger Pigeon.' I am not quite sure there is a book of the kind. I have a notion the art is traditional, handed down by word of mouth, and that you have to be sworn of the guild or something of that kind. Before we had our knockdown in the world, in father's time, when I lived in lodgings in Bloomsbury, I knew a little of the craft--as a victim, mind you; but now I have forgotten all about it, except that neither corks nor stoppers had appreciable effect in retarding the evaporation of wine or spirits, and that fowl or game or meat always went too bad twelve hours after it was cooked to be of further use to me. Tea also would not keep in the insalubrious air of Bloomsbury."