"Stop a bit," eagerly interrupted the old man, catching Jones by the button-hole, and fixing him, as the 'Ancient Mariner' fixed the wedding guest, with his glittering eye, "stop a bit; you take the house, keep shop, parlour, and bedroom for yourself and family--plenty; furnish front room, let it at five shillings a week; fifty-two weeks in the year; five times two, ten--put down naught, carry one; five times five, twenty-five, and one, twenty-six--two hundred and sixty shillings, make thirteen pounds; take thirteen pounds from thirty-five--" "Law bless you, Sir!" hastily interrupted Jones, getting frightened at the practical landlord view the one-eyed and one-sided-nosed old man seemed to take of his presence in the house. "Law bless you, Sir! it's all a mistake, every bit of it." "A mistake!" interrupted the old man, his voice rising shrill and loud. "A mistake! five times two, ten--" "Well, but I couldn't think of such a thing," in his turn interrupted Jones. "I--" "Well then, say thirty pound," pertinaciously resumed the old man; "take thirteen from thirty--" "No, I can't then--really, I can't," desperately exclaimed Jones; "on my word I can't." "Well, then, say twenty-five; from twenty-five take thirteen--" "I tell you, 'tain't a bit of use your taking away thirteen at that rate," interrupted Jones, rather warmly. "And what will you give, then?" asked the old man, with a sort of screech. "Why, nothing!" impatiently replied Jones. "Who ever said I would give anything? I didn't--did I?" "Then what do you come creeping and crawling about the place for?" hissed the old man, his one eye glaring defiance on Jones, "eh! just tell me that. Why, these two months you've crept and crept, and crawled, and crawled, till you've sent the rag and bottle people away. 'Sir,' says the rag and bottle woman to me, 'Sir, we can't stand it no longer. There's a man, Sir, and he prowls around the shop. Sir, and he jist looks in, and darts off agin, and he won't buy no rags, and he hasn't no bottles to sell; and my husband and me, Sir, we can't stand it--that's all.' Well, and what have you got to say to that, I should like to know?" Jones, who never had a very ready tongue, and who was quite confounded at the accusation, remained dumb. "I'll tell you what you are, though," cried the old man, his voice rising still higher with his wrath; "you are a crawling, creeping, low, sneaking fellow!" "Now, old gentleman!" cried Jones, in his turn losing his temper, "just keep a civil tongue in your head, will you? I didn't ask to come in, did I? And if I did look at the shop at times, why, a cat can look at a king, can't he?"