“That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain’t here; just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I’ll not only be obliged to you, but it’ll do you more credit,” says Mr. Bucket. “This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?”
“Name of Chadband,” Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a much lower key.
“Once had a friend and brother sergeant of the same name,” says Mr. Bucket, offering his hand, “and consequently feel a liking for it. Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?”
“And Mrs. Snagsby,” Mr. Smallweed introduces.
“Husband a law-stationer and a friend of my own,” says Mr. Bucket. “Love him like a brother! Now, what’s up?”
“Do you mean what business have we come upon?” Mr. Smallweed asks, a little dashed by the suddenness of this turn.
“Ah! You know what I mean. Let us hear what it’s all about in presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come.”
Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment’s counsel with him in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable amount of oil from the pores of his forehead and the palms of his hands, says aloud, “Yes. You first!” and retires to his former place.
“I was the client and friend of Mr. Tulkinghorn,” pipes Grandfather Smallweed then; “I did business with him. I was useful to him, and he was useful to me. Krook, dead and gone, was my brother-in-law. He was own brother to a brimstone magpie—leastways Mrs. Smallweed. I come into Krook’s property. I examined all his papers and all his effects. They was all dug out under my eyes. There was a bundle of letters belonging to a dead and gone lodger as was hid away at the back of a shelf in the side