"Oh," said Charlie. "Pleased to meet you," with which he retired to a chair in a dusky corner and was silent for a long time. At last he asked: "Have you been to Paris, Mr.... Tippery? Thrippenny, I should say." "Timpany, Charlie. I wish you'd listen. Have you got cloth ears? Of course he's been to Paris, and, for gracious, don't you start your stories. One would think to hear you talk as you were the only man on earth as had ever been further than Islington." "I was in Paris once some years back--on business," Charlie remarked. "I think Paris is a knockout, as towns go. Not but what I like London better. Only you see more life in Paris," and he relapsed into silence, until finally Mr. Timpany said he must be going. "Who's he?" demanded Mr. Raeburn, when his wife came back from escorting her visitor to the door. "I told you once--a friend of father's." "Ikey sort of a bloke. He hasn't made a mistake coming here, has he? I thought it was the Duke of Devonshire when I see him sitting there." "You are an ignorant man," declared Mrs. Raeburn. "Don't you know a gentleman when you see one? Even if you have lost your own shop and got to go to work every morning like a common navvy, you can tell a gentleman still." "Are you bringing in any more dukes or markisses home to tea?" asked Charlie. "Because let me know next time and I'll put on a clean pair of socks." Mrs. Raeburn did not bring any more dukes or marquises home to tea; but Mr. Timpany came very often, and Charlie took to returning from work very punctually, and, though he was always very polite to Mr. Timpany when he was there, he was very rude indeed about him when he was gone, and Jenny used to think how funny it was to wait for Mr. Timpany's departure before he began to make a fuss. Vaguely she felt her father was afraid to say much. She could understand his fear, because Mr. Timpany was very large and strong, so large and strong that even her mother spoke gently and always seemed anxious to please him. And looking at the pair side by side, her father appeared quite small--her father whom she had long regarded as largeness personified. One day Jenny came home late from school and found her parents in the middle of a furious argument. "I ar'n't going to have him here," Charlie was saying, "not no more, not again, the dirty hound!" "You dare say that, you vulgar beast." "I shall say just whatever I please. You're struck on him, that's what you are, you soft idiot." "I'm no such thing," declared Mrs. Raeburn. "Nice thing that a friend of father's can't come and have a cup of tea without your carrying on like a mad thing." "Not so much 'cup of tea,' Mrs. Raeburn. It's not the tea I minds. It's while the kettle's boiling as I objects to." "You're drunk," said the wife scornfully.