“A secret service, your honor’s worship! Ah, that is what my heart delights in! Ah, then, I have done more than one secret service for gentlemen of the highest rank! aye, and for ladies too, bless them! and got well paid for them besides! enough money to have kept me in clover all my life, only it always got stole from me by the wretches in the house.” “Well, you must take better care of the money which I shall pay you. But what was the nature of these secret services of which you speak.” “Ah, your honor’s worship, if I were to tell you that they wouldn’t be a secret any longer, and neither would you trust such an old blabber as me with _your_ secrets,” said the old woman, leering wickedly. “That is so,” said Everage; “and, besides, this is no place for carrying on a private conversation. Here comes another group of people quite close.” The group came and passed. “Now, then, Mother Rooter, tell me where you live, if you have no objection, and whether I can find you at home if I come to you this evening, so that we may arrange this affair,” said Everage, as soon as the coast was again clear. “Is it where I live your honor asks me? That’s a good ’un! Do you call it living? this life I lead. No, your honor, it is not living, it is lingering.” “Where, then, do you linger?” “Well, then, sir, I draws my breath and stretches my bones in the back attic of No. 9 Blood Alley, Burke Lane, Black Street, Blackfriars Road. All B’s, your honor. You can remember it by that. The house is Number Nine. They keep a bone and grease shop in the cellar, and rags and bottles on the first floor, and all the rest of the house is let to lodgers, all poor, but I the poorest, your worship.” “And shall I come to you there?” “If your worship will do me the honor.” “But the house, which seems from your description to be a tenement house of the worst order——” “Aye, you may say that, your worship,” interrupted the old woman; “but what is a poor body to do?” “I was about to observe that the house would be full, crowded, so much so that perhaps even your own back attic has other tenants.” “And so it has, your honor’s worship.” “In which case I do not see how I am to have an opportunity of speaking to you in private there more than here.” “Oh, dear gentleman, if you come at nine o’clock, you’ll catch me alone. Sure they’ll all be out then on their tramps, and they won’t be in much before morning. And sure your honor’s worship might even trust them, seeing as they’re all my own family, and would be fast as fast and safe as safe in any secret service as I might undertake. And your honor knows best whether you mightn’t want their aid too, in sommut where they might be of use. I don’t know yet what your service is, your honor. You haven’t told me yet. But I know I am an ole ’oman, your honor’s worship, and might want help, in case the service might require strength, like the breaking into a house and the bringing off of a dockerment or a young lady.”