Mrs. Mel alighted at the Dolphin, the landlady of which was a Mrs. Hawkshaw, a rival of Mrs. Sockley of the Green Dragon.  She was welcomed by Mrs. Hawkshaw with considerable respect.  The great Mel had sometimes slept at the Dolphin.

‘Ah, that black!’ she sighed, indicating Mrs. Mel’s dress and the story it told.

’I can’t give you his room, my dear Mrs. Harrington, wishing I could!  I’m sorry to say it’s occupied, for all I ought to be glad, I dare say, for he’s an old gentleman who does you a good turn, if you study him.  But there!  I’d rather have had poor dear Mr. Harrington in my best bed than old or young—­Princes or nobodies, I would—­he was that grand and pleasant.’

Mrs. Mel had her tea in Mrs. Hawkshaw’s parlour, and was entertained about her husband up to the hour of supper, when a short step and a querulous voice were heard in the passage, and an old gentleman appeared before them.

‘Who’s to carry up my trunk, ma’am?  No man here?’

Mrs. Hawkshaw bustled out and tried to lay her hand on a man.  Failing to find the growth spontaneous, she returned and begged the old gentleman to wait a few moments and the trunk would be sent up.

‘Parcel o’ women!’ was his reply.  ’Regularly bedevilled.  Gets worse and worse.  I ‘ll carry it up myself.’

With a wheezy effort he persuaded the trunk to stand on one end, and then looked at it.  The exertion made him hot, which may account for the rage he burst into when Mrs. Hawkshaw began flutteringly to apologize.

’You’re sure, ma’am, sure—­what are you sure of?  I’ll tell you what I am sure of—­eh?  This keeping clear of men’s a damned pretence.  You don’t impose upon me.  Don’t believe in your pothouse nunneries—­not a bit.  Just like you! when you are virtuous it’s deuced inconvenient.  Let one of the maids try?  No.  Don’t believe in ’em.’

Having thus relieved his spleen the old gentleman addressed himself to further efforts and waxed hotter.  He managed to tilt the trunk over, and thus gained a length, and by this method of progression arrived at the foot of the stairs, where he halted, and wiped his face, blowing lustily.

Mrs. Mel had been watching him with calm scorn all the while.  She saw him attempt most ridiculously to impel the trunk upwards by a similar process, and thought it time to interfere.

’Don’t you see you must either take it on your shoulders, or have a help?’

The old gentleman sprang up from his peculiarly tight posture to blaze round at her.  He had the words well-peppered on his mouth, but somehow he stopped, and was subsequently content to growl:  ’Where ’s the help in a parcel of petticoats?’

Mrs. Mel did not consider it necessary to give him an answer.  She went up two or three steps, and took hold of one handle of the trunk, saying:  ‘There; I think it can be managed this way,’ and she pointed for him to seize the other end with his hand.