“‘Ere, there, an’ everywhere, Joe, I can feel ’em!  They’re always a-gettin’ theirselves all mixed up any’ow.  Oh, it’s an ’orrible complaint to ’ave kidneys like mine as gets theirselves lost.”

“Wish they’d lose you along with ’em!” growled Joe, shaking the dust from his handkerchief.

“Joe,” said the old man, putting on his hat and blinking up at him beneath its jaunty brim, “Joe, sometimes I fair despise ye!”

“Well, despise away,” nodded Joe, “only get up—­stand up on them doddering old pins o’ yourn.”

“Not me!” declared the Old Un, “I ain’t goin’ to climb no more o’ these perishin’ stairs—­no, not for you nor nobody.  ‘Ere I am, me lad, an’ ‘ere I sits till you give me a piggy-back up to the top—­me bein’ a pore old cove with rheumatiz.  I demands it—­”

“You’ll what?” growled Joe, hard-breathing and indignant.

“Demand it, Joe—­a pore old feller wi’ kidneys—­an’ every other ailment as flesh is hair to—­a piggy-back, Joe—­a piggy-back!”

Without another word Joe stooped, and lifting the old man beneath one arm, bore him up the stairs regardless of his croaking protestations and fierce invective.

“I said a piggy-back—­oh, you blightin’ perisher, I said a piggy-back,” he snarled, his resplendent shoes twinkling in futile kicks.  “Oh, Joe, there’s times when I fair ’ates ye!”

Thus, despite virulent curses and feeble kickings, Joe bore him on and up until, as he climbed the last flight, he was arrested by an exclamation from above, and glancing upward, beheld a tall, sharp-featured woman who leaned over the rail.

“Oh, land o’ my fathers!” exclaimed Mrs. Trapes, “what’s the matter—­what you got there?  Who are ye?”

“The matter, ma’am,” answered Joe, for by this time the Old Un had cursed himself quite breathless, “the matter’s contrariness; what I ’ave under my arm, ma’am, is a old reprobate, and I’m Joe Madden, ma’am, come to take tea with my—­come, as you might say, a visiting to Mr. Geoffrey; p’raps you’ll—­”

“Don’t ’eed ’im, ma’am—­never ’eed ’im!” croaked the Old Un, who had regained his wind by now. “’E ‘s a perishin’ pork pig, that’s wot ’e is.  Joe, you blighter, put me down.  It’s me as the Guv expects—­it’s me as ’as come a-visitin’—­Joe, put me down, you perisher.  Joe’s only a hoaf, ma’am, a nass, ma’am.  Joe ain’t used to perlite serciety, Joe don’t know nothin’—­put me down, Joe, like a good lad!”

At this juncture Ravenslee appeared, whereupon Joe, having reached the topmost landing, set the old man upon his natty feet and fell to straightening his smart clothes with hands big but gentle.

“Sir,” explained Joe, answering Ravenslee’s smiling look, “Old Sin an’ Sorrer here wouldn’t walk up, which forced me to—­”

But now the Old Un, feeling himself again, cut in on his own account.  “Ma’am,” said he, flourishing off his hat to Mrs. Trapes, “’ere ’s me an’ me lad Joe come to tea—­my best respex an’ greetin’s, ma’am.  How do, Guv?  I do ‘ope as you ain’t forgot th’ cake.”