Therefore I went to the kitchen to see the Inspector’s son, and requested Mrs. Shelfer to allow me five minutes of conversation with him. He stood all the while, and seemed rather shy and confused. He had not heard from his father, since the ship sailed; but he had seen in the papers that she had been spoken somewhere. "The party as I knew of" was still safe in London--my blood ran like lava at the thought--or I should have heard of it. He, George Cutting, had his eye upon him, and so had two of the detective force; but what were they in comparison with his father? This he asked, despite his shyness, with so large a contempt, that I began to think the Cutting family admired the Cuttings only. Upon me, who am no Cutting, he left the simple impression that the qualities, so lauded by his father, lay as yet beneath a bushel. However, his Aunt Patty declared that he could eat three times as much as Charley. Not unlikely, if he only drank one-third of Charley’s allowance. Mrs. Shelfer, who knew that I was laying by a fixed sum every week, began to look upon me as a fine young miser. Of course she quite fell in with what she supposed to be my ideas, for she never contradicted any one, unless it was a cabman. "Oh, I do love money, my good friend; gold, gold, it is so bootiful. Did you ever hear tell of the marrow bone I had? Oh dear!" "What marrow bone, Mrs. Shelfer?" "Why a big beef marrow bone, that long, full of sovereigns and guineas after dear Miss Minto. I stopped it with a bung and a piece of bladder, and for better than a twelvemonth, while they was executing her will, I slept with that beneath my pillow for fear the priest should get it. Lord, how they did fight over the poor old lady’s rags and bones, that leathery priest and three yellow kites of cousins, they said they was, as come from Portugal. At last they got a ministration[#] with the testament and text, and they robbed me shameful, shameful, my good friend. Never catch me going to mass again, or you may tell me of it." [#] ? Letters of Administration cum testamento annexo. "And what became of the marrow bone, Mrs. Shelfer?" At this inquiry, she winked both eyes rapidly, and screwed up her little mouth. "Oh what a thief that Father Banger was, to be sure! You see, Miss, I had strict orders to shut him out, when Miss Minto was near her end, because he had kicked her dear cat Filippina from the top of the stairs to the bottom, after he had gived her unction. What a pretty sight it was to see them seven dear cats, all sitting round the fire, each one on his proper stool with his name done on it in different coloured worsted. I had so much a year left me on the Bank of England, honourable to the day, for each one of those cats, and change of diet every week, and now there’s only one of them left, and that is my dear old Tom." "But, Mrs. Shelfer, about the marrow bone--"