“Can you favour me with your attention, sir?” he inquired, addressing himself to me.

“I am quite at your service,” I answered.

Betteredge took a chair and seated himself at the table.  He produced a huge old-fashioned leather pocket-book, with a pencil of dimensions to match.  Having put on his spectacles, he opened the pocket-book, at a blank page, and addressed himself to me once more.

“I have lived,” said Betteredge, looking at me sternly, “nigh on fifty years in the service of my late lady.  I was page-boy before that, in the service of the old lord, her father.  I am now somewhere between seventy and eighty years of age—­never mind exactly where!  I am reckoned to have got as pretty a knowledge and experience of the world as most men.  And what does it all end in?  It ends, Mr. Ezra Jennings, in a conjuring trick being performed on Mr. Franklin Blake, by a doctor’s assistant with a bottle of laudanum—­and by the living jingo, I’m appointed, in my old age, to be conjurer’s boy!”

Mr. Blake burst out laughing.  I attempted to speak.  Betteredge held up his hand, in token that he had not done yet.

“Not a word, Mr. Jennings!” he said, “It don’t want a word, sir, from you.  I have got my principles, thank God.  If an order comes to me, which is own brother to an order come from Bedlam, it don’t matter.  So long as I get it from my master or mistress, as the case may be, I obey it.  I may have my own opinion, which is also, you will please to remember, the opinion of Mr. Bruff—­the Great Mr. Bruff!” said Betteredge, raising his voice, and shaking his head at me solemnly.  “It don’t matter; I withdraw my opinion, for all that.  My young lady says, ‘Do it.’  And I say, ’Miss, it shall be done.’  Here I am, with my book and my pencil—­the latter not pointed so well as I could wish, but when Christians take leave of their senses, who is to expect that pencils will keep their points?  Give me your orders, Mr. Jennings.  I’ll have them in writing, sir.  I’m determined not to be behind ’em, or before ’em, by so much as a hair’s breadth.  I’m a blind agent—­that’s what I am.  A blind agent!” repeated Betteredge, with infinite relish of his own description of himself.

“I am very sorry,” I began, “that you and I don’t agree——­”

“Don’t bring me, into it!” interposed Betteredge.  “This is not a matter of agreement, it’s a matter of obedience.  Issue your directions, sir—­issue your directions!”

Mr. Blake made me a sign to take him at his word.  I “issued my directions” as plainly and as gravely as I could.

“I wish certain parts of the house to be reopened,” I said, “and to be furnished, exactly as they were furnished at this time last year.”

Betteredge gave his imperfectly-pointed pencil a preliminary lick with his tongue.  “Name the parts, Mr. Jennings!” he said loftily.

“First, the inner hall, leading to the chief staircase.”