Grandfather Nat roared up the little staircase for Mrs. Grimes, and presently she descended, amiable still; till she saw the coarse woman, and was asked to help her. She looked on the woman with something of surprise and something of confusion; but carried it off at once with a toss of the head, a high phrase or so--"likes of 'er--respectable woman"--and a quick retreat upstairs. I believe my grandfather would have brought her down again by main force, but the woman on the floor stirred, and began scrambling up, even before she knew where she was. She held the shelf, and looked dully about her, with a hoarse "Beg pardon, sir, beg pardon." Then she went across toward the door, which stood ajar, stared stupidly, with a look of some dawning alarm, and said again, "Beg pardon, sir--I bin queer"; and with that was gone into the passage. It was not long after her departure ere the business above was over, and the people came tramping and talking down into the bar, filling it close, and giving Joe the potman all the work he could do. The coroner came down by our private stairs into the bar-parlour, ushered with great respect by my grandfather; and at his heels, taking occasion by a desperately extemporised conversation with Grandfather Nat, came Mr. Cripps. There had never been an inquest at the Hole in the Wall before, and my grandfather had been at some exercise of mind as to the proper entertainment of the coroner. He had decided, after consideration, that the gentleman could scarce be offended at the offer of a little lunch, and to that end he had made ready with a cold fowl and a bottle of claret, which Mrs. Grimes would presently be putting on the table. The coroner was not offended, but he would take no lunch; he was very pleasantly obliged by the invitation, but his lunch had been already ordered at some distance; and so he shook hands with Grandfather Nat and went his way. A circumstance that had no small effect on my history. For it seemed to Mr. Cripps, who saw the coroner go, that by dexterous management the vacant place at our dinner-table (for what the coroner would call lunch we called dinner) might fall to himself. It had happened once or twice before, on special occasions, that he had been allowed to share a meal with Captain Nat, and now that he was brushed and oiled for company, and had publicly distinguished himself at an inquest, he was persuaded that the occasion was special beyond precedent, and he set about to improve it with an assiduity and an innocent cunning that were very transparent indeed. So he was affectionately admiring with me, deferentially loquacious with my grandfather, and very friendly with Joe the potman and Mrs. Grimes. It was a busy morning, he observed, and he would be glad to do anything to help.