Chapter X

DEVLIN THE BARBER TAKES FANNY'S FIRST FLOOR FRONT.

"Our first lodger, sir, was a clerk in the City, and he played the bassoon that excruciating that our lives become a torment. The neighbours all complained, and threatened to bring me and Lemon and the young man and his bassoon before the magerstrates. I told the clerk that he'd have to give up the second floor front or the bassoon, and that he might take his choice. He took his choice, and went away owing me one pound fourteen, and I haven't seen the colour of his money from that day to this.

"Our second lodger was a printer, who worked all night and slep all day. I could have stood him if it hadn't turned out that he'd run away from his wife, who found out where he was living, and give us no peace. She was a dreadful creature, and I never saw her sober. She smelt of gin that strong that you knew a mile off when she was coming. 'That's why I left her, Mrs. Lemon,' the poor man said to me; 'she's been the ruin of me. Three homes has she sold up, and she's that disgraced me that it makes me wild to hear the sound of her voice. The law won't help me, and what am I to do?' I made him a cup of tea, and said I was very sorry for him, but that she wasn't _my_ wife, and that I'd take it kind of him if he'd find some other lodgings. All he said was, 'Very well, Mrs. Lemon, I can't blame you; but don't be surprised if you read in the papers one day that I am brought up for being the death of her, or that I've made a hole in the water. If she goes on much longer, one of them things is sure to happen.' He went away sorrowful, and paid me honourable to the last farthing.

"It wasn't encouraging, sir, but I didn't lose heart. 'The third time's lucky,' I said to myself, as I put the bill in the winder agin, little dreaming what was to come of it. It remained there nigh on a fortnight, when a knock come at the street-door.

"I do all the work in the house myself. A body may be genteel without keeping a parcel of servants to eat you out of house and home, and sauce you in the bargain. A knock come at the street-door, as I said. If I'd known what I know now, the party as knocked might have knocked till he was blue in the face, or dropped down in a fit before he'd got me to answer him. But I had no suspicions, and I went and opened the door, and there I saw a tall, dark man, with a black moustache, curled up at the ends.

"'You've got a bill in the winder,' said he, 'of a room to let.'

"'Yes, sir,' I answered, hardly giving myself time to look at him, I was that glad of the chance of letting the room; 'would you like to see it?'

"'I should,' said he.

"And in he walked, and up the stairs, after me, to the second floor front. It didn't strike me at the time, but it did often afterwards when I listened for 'em in vain, that I didn't hear his footsteps as he follered me up-stairs. Never, from the moment he entered this house, have I heard the least sound from his feet, and yet he wears what looks like boots. He's never asked me to clean 'em, and I'd rather be torn to pieces with red hot pinchers than do it now.

"'It's a cheerful room, sir,' said I to him. 'Looks out on the square.'

"'Charming,' he said, 'the room, the square, you, everything.'

"'That's a funny way of talking,' I thought, and I said out loud, 'Do you think it will suit, sir?'

"'Do I think it will suit?' he said. 'I am sure it will suit. I take it from this minute. What's the rent?'

"'With attendance, sir?' I asked.

"'With or without attendance,' he answered; 'it matters not.'

"Not 'It don't matter,' as ordinary people say, but 'It matters not,' for all the world like one of them foreign fellers we see on the stage. I told him the rent, reckoning attendance, and he said:

"'Good. The bargain is made. I am yours, and you are mine.'

"And then he laughed in a way that almost made my hair stand on end. It wasn't the laugh of a human creature; there was something unearthly about it. As a rule, a body's pleased when another body laughs, but this laugh made me shiver all over; you know the sensation, sir, like cold water running down your back. Then, and a good many times since when he's been speaking or laughing, I felt myself turn faint with sech a swimming sensation that I had to ketch hold of something to keep myself from sinking to the ground.

"'I beg your pardon, sir,' I said, when I come to, 'but if you've no objections I'd like a reference.'

"'Of course you would,' he said, laughing again, 'and here it is.'

"With that he gives me a sovering, and orders me to light the fire. There's that about him as makes it unpossible not to do as he orders you to, so on my knees I went there and then, and lit the fire.

"'Good,' he said. 'I couldn't have done it better myself. Mrs. Lemon--' and you might have knocked me down with a feather when I heard him speak my name. How did he get to know it? _I_ never told him.--Mrs. Lemon,' said he, 'I see in your face that you'd like to ask me a question or two.'

"'I would, sir,' I said, shaking and trembling all over. 'If I may make so bold, sir, are you a married man?'

"He put his hand on his heart, and, grinning all over his face, answered, 'Mrs. Lemon, I am, and have ever been, single.'

"'Might I be so bold as to ask your name, sir?' I said.

"'Devlin,' said he.

"'Dev--what?' I garsped.

"'Lin,' said he. 'Devlin. I'll spell it for you. D-e-v-l-i-n. Have you got it well in your mind?'

"'I have, sir,' I said, very faint.

"'Good,' said he, pointing to the door. 'Go.'

"I had to go, sir, and I went, and that is how Mr. Devlin become our lodger."