On the stairs I almost ran against Mr. Foggatt. He started and turned
pale, exhibiting signs of alarm that I could not understand, and asked me
if I wished to see him.
"'No,' I replied, 'I didn't know you lived here. I am after somebody else
just now. Aren't you well?'
"He looked at me rather doubtfully, and said he was _not_ very well.
"I met him twice or thrice after that, and on each occasion his manner
grew more friendly, in a servile, flattering, and mean sort of way--a
thing unpleasant enough in anybody, but doubly so in the intercourse of a
man with another young enough to be his own son. Still, of course, I
treated the man civilly enough. On one occasion he asked me into his rooms
to look at a rather fine picture he had lately bought, and observed
casually, lifting a large revolver from the mantel-piece:
"'You see, I am prepared for any unwelcome visitors to my little den! He!
He!' Conceiving him, of course, to refer to burglars, I could not help
wondering at the forced and hollow character of his laugh. As we went down
the stairs he said: 'I think we know one another pretty well now, Mr.
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