"And I'm a-going to tell it, ma'am, in due course," returned the police-officer, drawing a bloated leather book from his pocket, and opening it. "I've got all down here in regular order. First and foremost, the baronet--he's a bad lot, is the baronet." "I do not need to hear that from your lips." "Very likely not, ma'am. But if you set me to watch a gentleman, you must expect I shall form an opinion about him. The baronet has lodgings in Villiers Street, uncommon shabby ones. I went in and took a good survey of him and his lodgings together, in the character of a bootmaker, taking home a pair of boots, which was intended for a Mr. Everfield in the next street, says I, and, of course, Everfield and Eversleigh being a'most the same names, was calculated to lead to inconvenient mistakes. In the character of the bootmaker, Sir Reginald Eversleigh tells me to get out of his room, and be--something uncommonly unpleasant, and unfit for the ears of ladies. In the character of the bootmaker, I scrapes acquaintance with a young person employed as housemaid, and very willing to answer questions, and be drawed out. From the young person employed as housemaid, I gets what I take the liberty to call my ground-plan of the baronet's habits; beginning with his late breakfast, consisting chiefly of gunpowder tea and cayenne pepper, and ending with the scroop of his latch-key, to be heard any time from two in the morning to day-break. From the young person employed as housemaid, I discover that my baronet always spends his evenings out of doors, and is known to visit a lady at Fulham very constant, whereby the young person employed as housemaid supposes he is keeping company with her. From the same young person I obtain the lady's address--which piece of information the young person has acquired in the course of taking letters to the post. The lady's address is Hilton House, Fulham. The lady's name has slipped my young person's memory, but is warranted to begin with a D." Mr. Larkspur paused to take breath, and to consult the memoranda in the bloated leather book.