“ That’s all right,” said Fascination Fledgeby.

“They say, ‘We know, Mr. Riah, we know. We have but to look at you, and we know.’ ”

“Oh, a good ’un are you for the post,” thought Fledgeby, “and a good ’un was I to mark you out for it! I may be slow, but I am precious sure.”

Not a syllable of this reflection shaped itself in any scrap of Mr. Fledgeby’s breath, lest it should tend to put his servant’s price up. But looking at the old man as he stood quiet with his head bowed and his eyes cast down, he felt that to relinquish an inch of his baldness, an inch of his grey hair, an inch of his coat-skirt, an inch of his hat-brim, an inch of his walking-staff, would be to relinquish hundreds of pounds.