"You must know, Frank, that the cause of Miss Tippet's disturbance just now is the strange conduct of her landlord, David Boone, who has been going on of late in a way that would justify his friends putting him in an asylum. His business affairs are, I fear, in a bad way, and he not only comes with excessive punctuality for Miss Tippet's rent, but he asks her for loans of money in a wild incoherent fashion, and favours her with cautions and warnings of a kind that are utterly incomprehensible. Only the other night he came to her and asked if she did not intend soon to visit some of her friends; and on being informed that she did not, he went further and advised her to do so, saying that she was looking very ill, and he feared she would certainly get into bad health if she did not. In fact, he even said that he feared she would die if she did not go to the country for a few weeks. Now, all this would be laughable, as being the eccentricity of a half-cracked fellow, if it were not that he exhibits such a desperate anxiety that his advice should be followed, and even begged of the poor lady, with tears in his eyes, to go to visit her friends. What d'ye think of it, Frank? I confess myself utterly nonplussed." "I don't know what to think," said Frank after a pause. "Either the man must be mad, or he wishes to rob Miss Tippet's house in her absence." Willie admitted that the first supposition might be true, but he held stoutly that the second was impossible, for Boone was too honest for that. They conversed for some time on this point, and both came ultimately to the conclusion that the thing was incomprehensible and mysterious, and that it ought to be watched and inquired into. Willie, moreover, said he would go and consult his friend Barret about it. "You know Barret, Frank?" "No; but I have heard of him." "Ah, he's a first-rate fellow--in one of the insurance offices--I forget which. I came to know him when I first went to Mr Tippet's. He lived then in the floor below us with a drunken companion whom he was anxious to reclaim; but he found him so hard to manage that he at last left him, and went to live in Hampstead. He and I became great friends when he lived under our workshop. He got married two years ago, and I have not seen much of him since, but he's a sharp fellow, and knows a good deal more of the Tippets than I was aware of. I'll go and see if he can throw any light on this subject." "The next point," pursued Willie, "is Cattley the clown. Have you seen or heard of him lately?" Frank said he had not.