"Go out! Go out!" he cried, interrupting me in a fury. "And dinners? And taverns? And you would be easier! D'ye know, Mr. Price, I have my doubts about you! Ay, I have!" he continued, leering at me with his big, cunning eyes; and now thrusting his face close to mine, now drawing it back again. "Are you for selling us, I wonder? Mind you, if that is your thought, two can play at that game, and I have writing of yours. Ay, I have writing of yours, Mr. Price, and for twopence I would send it where it will hang you. So be careful. Be careful or--give me that coat." Wishing that I had the courage to strike him in the back, praying that the next word he said might choke him, hating him with a dumb hatred, the blacker for its impotence, and for the menial services he made me do him, I gave him the long-skirted plum-coloured coat to which he pointed, and saw him clothe his lank ungainly figure in it, and top all with his freshly curled wig. He bade me tie his points and fasten on his sword; and this being done to his liking--and he was not very easy to please--he pulled down his ruffles, and walked to and fro, preening himself and looking a hundred times more ugly and loathsome for the finery, with which, for the first time, I saw him bedizened. Preparations so unusual, by awakening my curiosity as to the visitor in whose honour they were made, diverted me from my own troubles; to which I had done no more than return when a knock came at the outer door. Ferguson, in a flush of exultation that went far to show that he had entertained doubts of the visitor's coming, thrust me into the next room; a mere closet, ill-lighted by one small window, and bare, save for a bed-frame. Here he placed me beside the crack he had mentioned; and whispering in my ear the most fearful threats and objurgations in case I moved, or proved false to him, he cast a last look round to assure himself that all was right; then he went back into his own apartment, where through my Judas-hole I saw him pause. The girl's departure with the luggage had left the room but meagrely furnished; whether this and the effect it might have on his visitor's mind struck him, or he began at the last moment to doubt the prudence of his enterprise, he stood awhile in the middle of the floor gnawing his nails, and listening, or perhaps thinking. The drift of his reflections, however, was soon made clear; for on the visitor's impatiently repeating his summons, he moved stealthily to one of the windows--which being set in the mode of garret windows, deep in the slope of the roof, gave little light--and by piling his cloak in a heap on the sill, he contrived to obscure some of that little. This done, and crying softly "Coming! Coming!" he hastened to the door and opened it, bowing and scraping with an immense show of humility.