The shop-boy enjoyed the name of Robert Roddy. He was a soft-faced, washed-out youth, with a disposition to wink both eyes in a meek manner. Rough-spoken people called him an idiot, but Roddy was not quite such an idiot as they took him for. He obeyed his master's mandate by sitting down on a tall stool near the window, and occupied himself in attempting to carve a human face on the head of a walking-stick. "Glad to see you, Mr Gorman," said Boone, seating his tall body on a low stool at the side of his friend, who, with his hat on, had thrown himself into an armchair, and spread out both legs before the fire. "Very glad to see you, indeed, in my--little sanctum, my withdrawing room, if I may venture to use the name, to which I retire during the intervals of business." Boone said this with an air of pleasantry, and smiled, but his visitor did not encourage him. "Pretty long intervals, I should suppose," he growled, pulling out his pipe and lighting it. Boone admitted, with a sigh, that they were, and observed that trade was extremely dull--astonishingly dull. "Why, would you believe it, sir, I have not sold twenty shillings' worth o' goods all last week, and only one wax-doll within the month, although it's gettin' well on for Christmas-time? One would a'most fancy the childr'n was about to give up such vanities an' devote themselves to serious business. It's a serious business for the like of us, anyhow." Again Mr Boone smiled, and again failed to make an agreeable impression on his visitor, who demanded in a surly tone if he had been thinking over it, and made up his mind to do it. Boone's face changed at this indefinite question, and became a shade paler than it was by nature, as he replied, hesitatingly, that he _had_ been thinking over it, and that he had made up his mind _not_ to do it. "Oh, you have, have you?" said Gorman in a tone of irony. "Very good; then I'll trouble you to pay me the three hundred pounds you owe me by this day next week, and the rent of this here tenement for last half." Boone's face became still paler. "You're a hard landlord," said he. "You're a soft tenant," retorted Gorman. "You know what the punishment is by law," continued Boone. "Yes--death," said the other drily; "but you know as well as I do that it's never carried out nowadays." "But penal servitude for ten or twenty years ain't much better." "Some men think it's worse," replied Gorman, with a savage grin; "but you've no need to fear. If you only take the right precautions it's impossible to find it out, an' I'll engage to put ye up to doin' it in such a way that there won't be a scrap the size of a sixpence left to convict you. Only put a bold face on it and the thing's done, and your fortune made as well as mine." The man's voice and manner softened a little as he said this, for he thought he perceived symptoms of wavering in his tenant, who covered his face with his large thin hands and sighed deeply.