Mary's allusion to my lovely handwriting was consequent upon my having copied a letter for her to one Mr William Revitts, who was a policeman in London. She had asked me to copy it for her, and direct it "proper," because her hands were so dirty when she wrote that she was afraid he might not be able to read it. All the same, Mary's hands seemed to have been perfectly clean, though the probabilities were that the said Mr William Revitts, "mi one dere willim," would certainly not have been able to read the letter. In fact, I broke down over the very beginning by mistaking "one" for the number, and had to be corrected, Mary having meant to say _own_. Her allusion to my parents touched a tender chord, and my face worked as I recalled the happy times gone by. "I have nobody to write to," I said at last--"only my uncle." "Then I'd write and tell him, that I would." "I am not quite sure where he lives," I said. "I never saw him till-- till he came to the funeral." "But haven't you got nobody belonging to you--no friends at all?" "I think not," I said helplessly. "No one who would help me." "Well, you are a one," said Mary, pausing in the act of wiping out the tea-tray after half filling it and pouring the dirty water off at one corner. "Why, I've got no end o' people belonging to me; and if that brute upstairs--as I wish he may ache bad for a week!--was to raise his hand against me, my William would be down and serve him worse than Mr Wooster did, I can tell him--a wretch!" "Is that Mr William Revitts," I asked, "the policeman?" "Yes; but he wouldn't come down here as a policeman, but as a gentleman, and he'd soon teach Mr Blakeford what he ought to--Yes! What is it?" This was in answer to a shrill call for Mary in Mrs Blakeford's voice, and that lady came in immediately after, to Mary's great disgust. "You must get hot water ready directly, Mary," she began in an ill-used way. "I'm sure _I_ don't know what I shall do. He's very bad indeed." "Oh, there's lots of hot water," said Mary shortly. "Biler's full, and kettle's full, and I'll put on the great black saucepan and light the copper if you like." As she spoke Mary seized the big poker, and began stoking and hammering away at the fire in a most vicious manner, as if determined to vent her spleen upon Mr Blakeford's coals. "Your poor master's dreadfully bad," said Mrs Blakeford again, and she kept on looking at me in a way that seemed quite to indicate that I alone was to blame. "Oh, yes, mum, I dessay he is, and so's other people too, and wuss. I dessay he'll get better again if he don't die." Mrs Blakeford stared at Mary in a half-terrified way, and backed to the door. "You ring the bell when you want it, and I'll bring you a can of water upstairs," continued Mary ungraciously. "And couldn't you help me a little in attending upon your master, Mary?"