Hopgood
“Give it an understanding but no tongue.”
Hopgood was a man who could keep a secret, but who made so much ado in the process that he reminded one of the placard found posted up somewhere out west which reads, “A treasure of gold concealed here; don’t dig!” Or so his wife used to say, and she ought to know, for she had lived with him five years, three of which he had spent in the detective service.
“If he would only trust the wife of his bosom with whatever he’s got on his mind, instead of ambling around the building with his eyes rolling about like peas in a cauldron of boiling water, one might manage to take some comfort in life, and not hurt anybody either. For two days now, ever since the wife of Mr. Sylvester died and Mr. Sylvester has been away from the bank, he’s acted just like a lunatic. Not that that has anything to do with his gettin up of nights and roamin down five pair of stairs to see if the watchman is up to his duty, or with his askin a dozen times a day if I remembers how Mr. Sylvester found him and me, well nigh starvin in Broad Street, and gave him the good word which got him into this place? O no! O no, of course not! But something has, and while he persists in shutting out from his breast the woman he swore to love, honor, and cherish, that woman is not bound to bear the trials of life with patience. Every time he jumps out of his chair at the sound of Mr. Sylvester’s name, and someone is always mentionin’ it, I plumps me down on mine with an expression of my views regarding a kitchen stove that does all its drawin’ when the oven’s empty.”
So spake Mrs. Hopgood to her special crony and constant visitor, Mrs. Kirkshaw of Water Street, pursing up a mouth that might have been