"Having ascertained this much, I had done with the young person, for the time being," he continued, glibly; "and I felt that my next business would be at Hilton House. Here I presented myself in the character of a twopenny postman; but here I found the servants foreign, and so uncommonly close that they might as well have been so many marble monuments, for any good that was to be got out of them. Failing the servants, I fell back upon the neighbours and the tradespeople; and from the neighbours and the tradespeople I find out that my foreign lady's name is Durski, and that my foreign lady gives a party every night, which party is made up of gentlemen. That is queer, to say the least of it, thinks I. A lady who gives a party every night, and whose visitors are all gentlemen, is an uncommonly queer customer. Having found out this much, my mouth watered to find out more; for a man who has his soul in his profession takes a pleasure in his work, ma'am; and if you were to offer to pay such a man double to waste his time, he couldn't do it. I tried the neighbours, and I tried the tradespeople, every way; and work 'em how I would, I couldn't get much out of 'em. You see, ma'am, there's scarcely a human habitation within a quarter of a mile of Hilton House, so, when I say neighbours, I don't mean neighbours in the common sense of the word. There might be assassination going on every night in Hilton House undiscovered, for there's no one lives near enough to hear the victims' groans; and if there was anything as good for our trade as pork-pie making out of murdered human victims going nowadays, ma'am, Hilton House would be the place where I should look for pork-pies. Well, I was almost beginning to lose patience, when I sat down in a fancy-stationer's shop to rest myself. I sat down in this shop because I was really tired, not with any hope of making use of my time, for I was too far away from Hilton House to expect any luck in the way of information from the gentleman behind the counter. However, when a man has devoted his life to ferreting out information, the habit of ferreting is apt to be very strong upon him; so I pass the time of day to my fancy-stationer, and then begins to ferret. 'Madame Durski, at Hilton House yonder, is an uncommonly handsome woman,' I throw out, by way of an opening. 'Uncommonly,' replies my fancy-stationer, by which I perceive he knows her. 'A customer of yours, perhaps?' I throw out, promiscuous. 'Yes,' answers my fancy-stationer. 'A good one, too, I'll be bound,' I throw out, in a lively, conversational way. My fancy-stationer smiles, and being accustomed to study smiles, I see significance in his smile. 'A very good one in _some_ things,' replies my fancy-stationer, laying a tremendous stress upon the word _some_. 'Oh,' says I, 'gilt-edged note-paper and cream-coloured sealing-wax, for instance.' 'I don't sell her a quire of paper in a month,' answers my stationer. 'If she was as