The three pieces of stick were three broken and frayed fragments of a stout lithe cane. Miss Jenny taking them wonderingly, and the gentleman repeating with a grin, “ Mr. Alfred Lammle, if you’ll be so good. Compliments, on leaving England,” the lady and gentleman walked away quite deliberately, and Miss Jenny and her crutch-stick went upstairs. “Lammle, Lammle, Lammle?” Miss Jenny repeated as she panted from stair to stair, “where have I heard that name? Lammle, Lammle? I know! Saint Mary Axe!”

With a gleam of new intelligence in her sharp face, the dolls’ dressmaker pulled at Fledgeby’s bell. No one answered; but, from within the chambers, there proceeded a continuous spluttering sound of a highly singular and unintelligible nature.

“Good gracious! Is Little Eyes choking?” cried Miss Jenny.