"What if I do!" he said. "'Taint Sunday to-day, is it?--'Taint Sunday _all_ the time." Some one buried in the boot-hole laughed. "What's that got to do with it?" Ernie asked. "D'you keep a dirty tongue all the week, and put on a clean one o Sunday with yer change o clothes?" "Who was she?" persisted Alf, his eyes like the waters of a canal at night glittering in the murk of some desolate industrial quarter. Ernie folded his arms. He said nothing; but the lightning flickered about his face. "I know who she was then," continued Alf, his great head weaving from side to side. "She was one of the totties from the Third Floor--where you work." He thrust his head forward, and his eyes were cruel. "_D'you_ think she's for you?--Earning twenty-two a week, aren't you?--and what the German Jews toss you. Why, I doubt if she'd fall to ME--and I'm a master-man." Jeering laughter from the bowels of the earth punctuated his words. Just then Mr. Trupp came through the great swing-doors. He stopped for a word with the hall-porter. "You settled down here, Ernie?" he asked. "Pretty fair, sir, thank you," Ernie answered without enthusiasm. Mr. Trupp entered the car. He seemed perturbed. "Well, if you want to make a change at any time, let me know," he said. "I only suggested this as a make-shift for you, till we could fix you up in something better, you know." The Doctor drove home in surly mood. It was not till the evening that his wife arrived at the root of the trouble. "You remember Miss Caryll's maid?" he said. "Ruth Boam?" cried Mrs. Trupp. "That charming girl who used to bring us over strawberries from the Dower-house at Aldwoldston." Mr. Trupp stirred his coffee. "She's on the Third Floor at the Hohenzollern." Mrs. Trupp put down her work. "Temporarily," continued the other, "But she oughtn't to be there at all, a good girl like that. I told Madame as much." "I should think you did!" cried Mrs. Trupp, flashing out like a sword from a scabbard. "It's a crime!" "Madame's not a criminal," replied her husband quietly. "She's kind. But she's one of the people who carries her kindness altogether too far." CHAPTER XXXVIII THE SERPENT Ernie, who was never very fond of work, had on the Captain's arrival stored his trunks in the dressing-room to save himself the trouble of carting them up to the box-room in the roof. Now it occurred to him that if a nurse was called in to attend the sick man there might be trouble about the trunks. On the morning after Mr. Trupp's visit he determined, therefore, to move them before he was found out. Very early he opened the dressing-room door and blundered in. A girl with bare arms was standing before the looking-glass, dressing her dark hair; and the bed had been slept in. "O, beg pardon, Miss," said Ernie, genuinely abashed. The girl smiled and held up a hushing finger. "I didn't know, Miss," continued Ernie, still caught in his own confusion.