Mrs. Picker at first could only stare in reply. Confess to it? Him? What, and run the risk o' being put into ancuffs by that there Jones with his fat legs? And she! a poor old widder? If Monk went and said he didn't do it, she couldn't go and say he _did_. Doctor Duff'm might see as there were no choice left for _her_. Never should she forget the fright when the two young gents come in with their querries the next day; her fingers was took with the palsy and dropped the pudd'n basin, as she'd had fifteen year. Monk, poor fellow, couldn't sleep for a peck o' nights after, thinking o' Phoebe. "There; that's enough," said Mr. Duffham. "Who is Monk? Where does he come from?" From the moon, for all Mrs. Picker knew. A civiler young man she'd not wish to have lodging with her; paid reg'lar as the Saturdays come round; but he never told her nothing about hisself. "Which is his room? The one at the back, I suppose." Without saying with your leave, or by your leave, as Mrs. Picker phrased it in telling the story a long while afterwards, Mr. Duffham penetrated at once into the lodger's room. There he took the liberty of making a slight examination, good Mrs. Picker standing by with round eyes and open mouth. And what he discovered caused him to stride off at once to the pater. Roger Monk was not Monk at all, but somebody else. He had been implicated in some crime (whether guilty or not remained yet a question), and to avoid exposure had come away into this quiet locality under a false name. In short, during the time he had been working as gardener at Dyke Manor and living at Mother Picker's, he was in hiding. As the son of a well-known and most respectable landscape and ornamental nursery-man, he had become thoroughly conversant with the requisite duties. "They are fools, at the best, these fellows," remarked Duffham, as he finished his narrative. "A letter written to him by some friend betrayed to me all this. Now why should not Monk have destroyed that letter, instead of keeping it in his room, Squire?" The Squire did not answer. All he could do just now was to wipe his hot face and try to get over his amazement. Monk not a gardener or servant at all, but an educated man! Only living there to hide from the police; and calling himself by any name that came uppermost--which happened to be Monk! "I must say there's a certain credit due to him for his patient industry, and the perfection to which he has brought your grounds," said Mr. Duffham. "And for blighting all my hot-house plants at a blow--is there credit due to him for that?" roared out the Squire. "I'll have him tried for it, as sure as my name's Todhetley." It was easier said than done. For when Mr. Jones, receiving his private orders from the pater, went, staff in hand, to arrest Monk, that gentleman had already departed.