‘I suppose not.’

’And there’s the Freemasons.  They must meet, you know, sir, in course, because of the dooties.  But if you’ll believe me, sir, they don’t so much as wet their whistles.  They don’t indeed.  It always used to be a supper, and that was once a month.  Now they pays a rent for the use of the room!  Who is to get a living out of that, sir?—­not in the way of a waiter, that is.’

’If that’s the way things are going on I suppose the servants leave their places pretty often?’

’I don’t know about that, sir.  A man may do a deal worse than “The Dragon of Wantly”.  Them as goes away to better themselves, often worses themselves, as I call it.  I’ve seen a good deal of that.’

‘And you stick to the old shop?’

’Yes, sir; I’ve been here fifteen years, I think it is.  There’s a many goes away, as doesn’t go out of their heads, you know, sir.’

‘They get the sack, you mean?’

’There’s words between them and master—­or more likely, missus.  That’s where it is.  Servants is so foolish.  I often tell ’em how wrong folks are to say that soft words butter no parsnips, and hard words break no bones.’

’I think you’ve lost some of the old hands here since this time last year, John?’

‘You knows the house then, sir?’

‘Well;—­I’ve been here before.’

’There was four of them sent, I think, it’s just about twelve months back, sir.’

’There was a man in the yard I used to know, and last time I was down here, I found that he was gone.’

’There was one of ’em out of the yard, and two out of the house.  Master and them had got to very high words.  There was poor Scuttle, who had been post-boy at “The Compass” before he came here.’

‘He went away to New Zealand, didn’t he?’

’B’leve he did, sir; or to some foreign parts.  And Anne, as was under-chambermaid here; she went with him, fool as she was.  They got themselves married and went off, and he was well nigh as old as me.  But seems he’d saved a little money, and that goes a long way with any girl.’

‘Was he the man who drove Mr Soames that day the cheque was lost?’ Mr Toogood asked this question perhaps a little too abruptly.  At any rate he obtained no answer to it.  The waiter said he knew nothing about Mr Soames, or the cheque, and the lawyer, suspecting that the waiter was suspecting him, finished his brandy-and-water and went to bed.

Early on the following morning he observed that he was specially regarded by a shabby-looking man, dressed in black, but in a black suit that was very old, with a red nose, whom he had seen in the hotel on the preceding day; and he learned that this man was a cousin of the landlord—­one Dan Stringer—­who acted as a clerk in the hotel bar.  He took an opportunity also of saying a word to Mr Stringer the landlord—­whom he found to be a somewhat forlorn and gouty individual, seated on cushions in