"Hof course coloured people are very precarious, sir, very precarious; you don't know 'ow they live, nor you don't want to," said Huddesley, arranging the dishes. "Their servants is hall coloured, sir, you know. Hi halways think 'Like master, like man'--that's the hold sayin', sir." "I must stop him," thought Doctor Vardaman guiltily. "It's disgraceful listening to a servant's gossip this way--Ahem! Who was that I heard you having such a squabble with at the kitchen door yesterday afternoon, Huddesley?" he asked abruptly. "A fellow peddlin' shoe-strings and collar-buttons, sir--Hi didn't like 'is looks and Hi hordered 'im hoff pretty sharp. Hi'm sorry you heard the--the haltercation, sir, but they're very 'ard to get rid of." "And you aren't any too plucky," said the doctor to himself with some amusement, remembering Huddesley's not over-heroic behaviour on the occasion of the burglary. "Why, I saw him going up the avenue towards Colonel Pallinder's afterwards, and I thought he looked like a respectable man," he said aloud. Huddesley paused a moment before answering; he was folding the tablecloth with an elaborate neatness; the operation required his undivided attention. Then: "Beg parding, sir, that wasn't 'im you saw," he said calmly. "That was the gent that collecks for Barlow & Foster, goin' hup to see if 'e couldn't get something on their coal-bill; I persoom you know it ain't been paid yet. There was hanother there yesterday from Scheurmann--the fourth or fifth time for _'im_, Hi've lost count, there's been so many of 'em lately." Doctor Vardaman retreated to his library, somewhat out of countenance. "Good Lord!" he thought, "it's worse than I supposed--a deal worse! These servants see or smell out everything. It's not safe to let them talk to you; _I_ don't want to know anything about the Pallinders' affairs." Nevertheless he smiled a little as he sat smoking by the fire. "'The haltercation,'" he quoted. "Huddesley certainly is a character. He reminds me of that valet of Major Pendennis' in the novel, that fellow Morgan--only Morgan turned out to be a rascal, the head villain of the story, if I remember." He took down the book--it was a first edition with Thackeray's own clumsy yet spirited illustrations--and sat reading the rest of the morning.