Slivers was just going out to seek him when the door of his office was violently flung open, and a tall, raw-boned female entered in a very excited manner. Dressed in a dusty black gown, with a crape bonnet placed askew on her rough hair, this lady banged on Slivers’ table a huge umbrella and demanded where Villiers was. ‘I don’t know,’ snapped Slivers, viciously; ‘how the devil should I?’ ‘Don’t swear at me, you wooden-legged little monster,’ cried the virago, with another bang of the umbrella, which raised such a cloud of dust that it nearly made Slivers sneeze his head off. ‘He ain’t been home all night, and you’ve been leading him into bad habits, you cork-armed libertine.’ ‘Hasn’t been home all night, eh?’ said Slivers, sitting up quickly, while Billy, who had been considerably alarmed at the gaunt female, retired to the fireplace, and tried to conceal himself up the chimney. ‘May I ask who you are?’ ‘You may,’ said the angry lady, folding her arms and holding the umbrella in such an awkward manner that she nearly poked Slivers’ remaining eye out. ‘Well, who are you?’ snapped Slivers, crossly, after waiting a reasonable time for an answer and getting none. ‘I’m his landlady,’ retorted the other, with a defiant snort. ‘Matilda Cheedle is my name, and I don’t care who knows it.’ ‘It’s not a pretty name,’ snarled Slivers, prodding the ground with his wooden leg, as he always did when angry. ‘Neither are you. What do you mean by banging into my office like an insane giraffe?’--this in allusion to Mrs Cheedle’s height. ‘Oh, go on! go on!’ said that lady defiantly; ‘I’ve heard it all before; I’m used to it; but here I sit until you tell me where my lodger is;’ and suiting the action to the word, Mrs Cheedle sat down in a chair with such a bang that Billy gave a screech of alarm and said, ‘Pickles!’ ‘Pickles, you little bag of bones!’ cried Mrs Cheedle, who thought that the word had proceeded from Slivers, ‘don’t you call me “Pickles”--but I’m used to it. I’m a lonely woman since Cheedle went to the cemetery, and I’m always being insulted. Oh, my nerves are shattered under such treatment’--this last because she saw the whisky bottle on the table, and thought she might get some. Slivers took the hint, and filling a glass with whisky and water passed it to her, and Mrs Cheedle, with many protestations that she never touched spirits, drank it to the last drop. ‘Was Villiers always in the habit of coming home?’ he asked. ‘Always,’ replied Mrs Cheedle; ‘he’s bin with me eighteen months and never stopped out one night; if he had,’ grimly, ‘I’d have known the reason of his rampagin’.’ ‘Strange,’ said Slivers, thoughtfully, fixing Mrs Cheedle with his one eye; ‘when did you see him last?’