This discussion took place in the kitchen of the Moat House. The heiress and Miss Parsh, the housekeeper, had departed for the seaside immediately after the funeral, and in the absence of control, the domestics were making merry. To be sure, Mr. Marlow's old and trusted servant, Joe Brill, had been told off to keep them in order, but just at present his grief was greater than his sense of duty. He was busy now sorting papers in the library--hence the domestic chaos. It was, in truth, a cheerful kitchen, more especially at the present moment, with the noonday sun streaming in through the open casements. A vast apartment with a vast fireplace of the baronial hall kind; brown oaken walls and raftered roof; snow-white dresser and huge deal table, and a floor of shining white tiles. There was a moment's silence after the last unanswerable observation of the cook. It was broken by a voice at the open door--a voice which boomed like the drone of a bumble-bee. "Peace be unto this house," said the voice richly, "and plenty be its portion." The women screeched, the men swore--since the funeral their nerves had not been quite in order--and all eyes turned towards the door. There, in the hot sunshine, stood an enormously fat old man, clothed in black, and perspiring profusely. It was, in fact, none other than Cicero Gramp, come in the guise of Autolycus to pick up news and unconsidered trifles. He smiled benignly, and raised his fat hand. "Peace, maid-servants and men-servants," said he, after the manner of Chadband. "There is no need for alarm. I am a stranger, and you must take me in." "Who the devil are you?" queried the coachman. "We want no tramps here," growled the footman. "I am no tramp," said Cicero mildly, stepping into the kitchen. "I am a professor of elocution and eloquence, and a friend of your late master's. He went up in the world, I dropped down. Now I come to him for assistance, and I find him occupying the narrow house; yes, my friends, Dick Marlow is as low as the worms whose prey he soon will be. Pax vobiscum!" "Calls master 'Dick,'" said the footman. "Sez 'e's an old friend," murmured the cook. They looked at each other, and the thought in every mind was the same. The servants were one and all anxious to hear the genesis of their late master, who had dropped into the Moat House, as from the skies, some five years before. Mrs. Crammer, the cook, rose to the occasion with a curtsy. "I'm sure, sir, I'm sorry the master ain't here to see you," she said, polishing a chair with her apron. "But as you says--or as I take it you means--'e's gone where we must all go. Take a seat, sir, and I'll tell Joe, who's in the library." "Joe--my old friend Joe!" said Cicero, sitting down like a mountain. "Ah! the faithful fellow!" This random remark brought forth information, which was Cicero's intention in making it.