When I came out of the hall, there was a man looking very like a burglar.  His dress, or what you should call his “get-up,” is worth a momentary glance.  He had a cat-skin cap in his hand about as large as a frying-pan, and nearly of the same colour—­this he kept turning round and round first with one hand, then with both—­a pea-jacket with large pearl buttons, corduroy breeches, a kind of moleskin waistcoat, and blucher shoes.  He impressed one in a moment as being fond of drink.  On one or two occasions I found this quality of great service to me in matters relating to the discovery of lost dogs.  Drink, no doubt, has its advantages to those who do not drink.

“Muster Orkins, sir,” said he, “beggin’ your pardon, sir, but might I have a word with you, Muster Orkins, if it ain’t a great intrusion, sir?”

I saw my man at once, and showed him that I understood business.

“You are Sam Linton?”

It took his breath away.  He hadn’t much, but poor old Sam did not like to part with it.  In a very husky voice, that never seemed to get outside his mouth, he said,—­

“Yus, sur; that’s it, Mr. Orkins.”  Then he breathed, “Yer ’onner, wot I means to say is this—­”

“What do you want, Linton?  Never mind what you mean to say; I know you’ll never say it.”

“Well, Mr. Orkins, sir, ye see it is as this:  you’ve lost a little dorg.  Well, you’ll say, ’How do you know that ‘ere, Sam?’ ‘Well, sir,’ I says, ‘’ow don’t I know it?  Ain’t you bin an’ offered fourteen pun for that there leetle dorg?  Why, it’s knowed dreckly all round Mile End—­the werry ’ome of lorst dorgs—­and that there dorg, find him when you wool, why, he ain’t worth more’n fourteen bob, sir.’  Now, ’ow d’ye ’count for that, sir?”

“You’ve seen him, then?”

“Not I,” says Sam, unmoved even by a twitch; “but I knows a party as ’as, and it ain’t likely, Mr. Orkins, as you’ll get ‘im by orferin’ a price like that, for why?  Why, it stands to reason—­don’t it, Mr. Orkins?—­it ain’t the dorg you’re payin’ for, but your feelins as these ‘ere wagabonds is tradin’ on, Mr. Orkins; that’s where it is.  O sir, it’s abominable, as I tells ’em, keepin’ a gennelman’s dorg.”

I was perfectly thunderstruck with the man’s philosophy and good feeling.

“Go on, Mr. Linton.”

“Well, Mr. Orkins, they knows—­damn ’em!—­as your feelins ull make you orfer more and more, for who knows that there dorg might belong to a lidy, and then her feelins has to be took into consideration.  I’ll tell ’ee now, Mr. Orkins, how this class of wagabond works, for wagabonds I must allow they be.  Well, they meets, let’s say, at a public, and one says to another, ‘I say, Bill,’ he says, ’that there dawg as you found ‘longs to Lawyer Orkins; he’s bloomin’ fond o’ dawgs, is Lawyer Orkins, so they say, and he can pay for it.’  ’Right you are,’ says Bill, ’and a d——­ lawyer shall pay for it.  He makes us pay when we wants him, and now we got him we’ll make him pay.’  So you see, Mr. Orkins, where it is, and whereas the way to do it is to say to these fellers—­I’ll just suppose, sir, I’m you and you’re me, sir; no offence, I hope—­’Well, I wants the dawg back.’  Well, they says; leastways, I ses, ses I,—­