“Westminister,” in his threadbare summer jacket--for the day was warm--had been standing for some little time in Mrs. Budgen's doorway on the ground floor at Hound Street. Knowing that Hughs was to be released that morning early, he had, with the circumspection and foresight of his character, reasoned thus: 'I shan't lie easy in my bed, I shan't hev no peace until I know that low feller's not a-goin' to misdemean himself with me. It's no good to go a-puttin' of it off. I don't want him comin' to my room attackin' of old men. I'll be previous with him in the passage. The lame woman 'll let me. I shan't trouble her. She'll be palliable between me and him, in case he goes for to attack me. I ain't afraid of him.' But, as the minutes of waiting went by, his old tongue, like that of a dog expecting chastisement, appeared ever more frequently to moisten his twisted, discoloured lips. 'This comes of mixin' up with soldiers,' he thought, 'and a lowclass o' man like that. I ought to ha' changed my lodgin's. He'll be askin' me where that young girl is, I shouldn't wonder, an' him lost his character and his job, and everything, and all because o' women!' He watched the broad-faced woman, Mrs. Budgen, in whose grey eyes the fighting light so fortunately never died, painfully doing out her rooms, and propping herself against the chest of drawers whereon clustered china cups and dogs as thick as toadstools on a bank. “I've told my Charlie,” she said, “to keep clear of Hughs a bit. They comes out as prickly as hedgehogs. Pick a quarrel as soon as look at you, they will.” 'Oh dear,' thought Creed, 'she's full o' cold comfort.' But, careful of his dignity, he answered, “I'm a-waitin' here to engage the situation. You don't think he'll attack of me with definition at this time in the mornin'?” The lame woman shrugged her shoulders. “He'll have had a drop of something,” she said, “before he comes home. They gets a cold feelin' in the stomach in them places, poor creatures!” The old butler's heart quavered up into his mouth. He lifted his shaking hand, and put it to his lips, as though to readjust himself. “Oh yes,” he said; “I ought to ha' given notice, and took my things away; but there, poor woman, it seemed a-hittin' of her when she was down. And I don't want to make no move. I ain't got no one else that's interested in me. This woman's very good about mendin' of my clothes. Oh dear, yes; she don't grudge a little thing like that!” The lame woman hobbled from her post of rest, and began to make the bed with the frown that always accompanied a task which strained the contracted muscles of her leg. “If you don't help your neighbour, your neighbour don't help you,” she said sententiously. Creed fixed his iron-rimmed gaze on her in silence. He was considering perhaps how he stood with regard to Hughs in the light of that remark. “I attended of his baby's funeral,” he said. “Oh dear, he's here a'ready!”