Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, “Officer. The best you can, the best you can!” and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly die away. He is not long in returning; a few paces ahead of Mercury and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossomed smalls, who bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another man and two women come behind. Directing the pitching of the chair in an affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket dismisses the Mercuries and locks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the sacred precincts with an icy stare.
“Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen,” says Mr. Bucket in a confidential voice. “I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I am; and this,” producing the tip of his convenient little staff from his breast-pocket, “is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him, and mind you, it ain’t everyone as is admitted to that honour. Your name, old gentleman, is Smallweed; that’s what your name is; I know it well.”
“Well, and you never heard any harm of it!” cries Mr. Smallweed in a shrill loud voice.
“You don’t happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?” retorts Mr. Bucket with a steadfast look, but without loss of temper.
“No!”
“Why, they killed him,” says Mr. Bucket, “on account of his having so much cheek. Don’t you get into the same position, because it isn’t worthy of you. You ain’t in the habit of conversing with a deaf person, are you?”
“Yes,” snarls Mr. Smallweed, “my wife’s deaf.”