So it was all packed up again in the chests; for he wouldn't let me finish cleaning it, saying it would take a week; and that it was more for the sake of seeing and going over it, than anything, that he had had it out. So we locked it all up again in the plate-room. And it took five waters hot as he could bear 'em to wash his hands; and even then there was some rouge left in the cracks, and in the old signet ring with the coat of arms cut in the stone--same as that on the plate. I don't know how it was; perhaps I was out of sorts, but from that day I got thinking about gold plate and what Sir John said about its worth. I knew what "incubus" meant, for I went up in the library and looked out the word in the big dictionary; and that plate got to be such an incubus to me that I went up to Sir John one morning and gave him warning. "But what for?" he said. "Wages?" "No, Sir John. You're a good master, and her ladyship was a good mistress before she was took up to heaven." "Hush, man, hush!" he says sharply. "And it'll break my heart nearly not to see young Master Barclay when he comes back from school." "Then why do you want to go?" "Well, Sir John, a good home and good food and good treatment's right enough; but I don't want to be found some morning a-weltering in my gore." "Now, look here, James Burdon," he says, laughing. "I trust you with the keys of the wine-cellar, and you've been at the sherry." "You know better than that, Sir John. No, sir. You said that gold plate was an incubus, and such it is, for it's always a-sitting on me, so as I can't sleep o' nights. It's killing me, that's what it is. Some night I shall be murdered, and all that plate taken away. It ain't safe, and it's cruel to a man to ask him to take charge of it." He did not speak for a few minutes. "What am I to do, then, Burdon?" "Some people send their plate to the bank, Sir John." "Yes," he says; "some people do a great many things that I do not intend to do.--There; I shall not take any notice of what you said." "But you must, please, Sir John; I couldn't stay like this." "Be patient for a few days, and I'll have something done to relieve you." I went down-stairs very uneasy, and Sir John went out; and next day, feeling quite poorly, after waking up ten times in the night, thinking I heard people breaking in, as there'd been a deal of burglary in Bloomsbury about that time, I got up quite thankful I was still alive; and directly after breakfast, the wine-merchant's cart came from Saint James's Street with fifty dozen of sherry, as we really didn't want. Sir John came down and saw to the wine being put in bins; and then he had all the wine brought from the inner cellar into the outer cellar, both being next my pantry, with a door into the passage just at the foot of the kitchen stairs.