“Lor’ sir,” said Mrs. Verwin again, and taking her turn to interrupt, “may I never speak another word, if she don’t owe me a good turn for having told him to go there, where he’d be comfortable, though I never could see as Miss Grison, and Louisa’s her name, was much of a housekeeper.” “You told Mr. Bakche to go,” said Alan, remembering how the Indian had mentioned to Miss Grison that someone in Ceylon had sent him to Thimble Square, “and why?” “Batch. Yes sir, Batch was the name, and he was a very dark gentleman with eyes like gimblets for boring a person through and through, haughty like and grand in his manners, speaking English like a native in spite of his having been reared in a country where they chatter French and German, the last a language I never could abide, since a waiter of that sort went away when the house was full, and I needed all the hands I’d got besides a few more. Oh, Mr. Batch was a gent sure enough, though a son of Ham as we are told in the Bible, your pa, Mr. Alan, having read about them children of Noah only three Sundays back, and then he——” “Why did you send Mr. Bakche to Miss Grison’s?” asked Alan impatiently. “Well, I didn’t in a way, sir, because it was the peacock as sent him to——” “The peacock,” repeated Marie, and looked at Alan anxiously. “And well do you know all about it, miss,” cried the voluble Mrs. Verwin, turning to face the speaker, “it being the luck of your family as will never have no fortune till it’s brought back again. And that Grison person as was your uncle’s clerk took it over twenty years back, as I’m a living woman, which we all said when we heard as he was gone and it was missing. I said and others said as Mr. Sorley should have persecuted——” “Did you tell all this to Mr. Bakche?” questioned Fuller quickly. “And why shouldn’t I tell him, Mr. Alan?” inquired Mrs. Verwin, wiping her heated face with a corner of her apron and bridling. “He asked if there wasn’t people called Inderwick hereabouts, and I up and told him all about the family. Mr. Batch says, as his father knew some of ’em in his own land, and said as how him he met—not mentioning names, though it was an Inderwick as spoke, and perhaps, miss, a cousin of your very own—well, him as he met mentioned a peacock. So I tells Mr. Batch all about the story of the peacock being the luck of the family, as all the countryside knows, and says as how we believed that Grison person had took it. He said he’d like to ask him or her about the peacock—meaning them Grisons—since he liked to hear them sort of stories, so I recommended her house to him as being comfortable, and heaven forgive me for the lie, seeing Miss Grison—and Louisa’s her name—ain’t got no more idea of cooking than a cat.” “Oh, Mr. Bakche is very comfortable there,” said Alan easily, and very glad that he had learned so much; “did Mr. Bakche say nothing about any treasure connected with the peacock?”