"Thank you, sir." Spire lingered, boots in hand. "The two small pistols are on the bedside table, sir. I have looked to the primings. This town is lull of rabble from all parts just now, so I hear. The lock of your door is fairly poor. I shall be sleeping just outside in the corridor, sir. They are going to put me a pallet there." "You will be very cold," protested Cosmo. "It will be all right, sir. I have got the fur rug out of the carriage. I had everything taken out of the carriage. The yard isn't safe, sir. Nothing is properly safe in this house, so far as I can see." Cosmo nodded absent-mindedly. "Oh, wait a moment, Spire. That man, that fellow in the cap, is he still downstairs?" Spire thought rapidly that he wouldn't be a party to bringing any of those ragamuffins up to the bedroom. "Gone a long time ago, sir," he said stolidly. Cosmo had a vivid recollection of the man's pose of being settled for an earnest and absorbing conversation to last half the night. "He doesn't belong to this house?" he asked. "No, sir, he only came to talk to a young woman. I left him taking leave of her to come up to you, sir. I suppose he was the man you meant, sir." "Yes," said Cosmo, "I have no doubt about it. He will probably turn up again." Spire admitted reluctantly that it was likely. He had been telling a long tale to that young woman. "She is very good-looking, sir." "Is she a servant here?" "Oh no, sir. She came in with that old cut-throat cobbler. They seem to be friendly. I don't like the looks of the people in this house." "I wonder," said Cosmo, "whether you could manage to obtain for me a quiet talk with that man on the next occasion he comes here." Spire received this overture in profound silence. "Do you think you could?" insisted Cosmo. A dispassionate raising of the eyebrows preceded the apparently irrelevant remark. "The worst of this house, sir, is that it seems open to all sorts of rabble." "I see. Well, try to think of some way. Spire. You may go now." Spire, carrying the boots, walked as far as the door, where he turned for a moment. "The only way I can think of, sir," he said, "would be to make friends with that young woman." Before Cosmo could recover from the surprise at the positive statement Spire had gone out and had shut the door.