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might; the deceased Mr. Tulkinghorn being cut down so sudden. The chance to hush it, is to let in these people now in a wrangle with your footmen. Would you mind sitting quiet—on the family account—while I reckon ’em up? And would you just throw in a nod, when I seem to ask you for it?”

Sir Leicester indistinctly answers, “Officer. The best you can, the best you can!” and Mr. Bucket, with a nod and a sagacious crook of the forefinger, slips down into the hall, where the voices quickly die away. He is not long in returning, a few paces ahead of Mercury, and a brother deity also powdered and in peach-blossom smalls, who bear between them a chair in which is an incapable old man. Another man and two women come behind. Directing the pitching of the chair, in an affable and easy manner, Mr. Bucket dismisses the Mercuries, and locks the door again. Sir Leicester looks on at this invasion of the sacred precincts with an icy stare.

“Now, perhaps you may know me, ladies and gentlemen,” says Mr. Bucket, in a confidential voice. “I am Inspector Bucket of the Detective, I am; and this,” producing the tip of his convenient little staff from his breast-pocket, “is my authority. Now, you wanted to see Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Well! You do see him; and, mind you, it ain’t every one as is admitted to that honor. Your name, old gentleman, is Smallweed; that’s what your name is; I know it well.”

“Well, and you never heard any harm of it!” cries Mr. Smallweed in a shrill loud voice.

“You don’t happen to know why they killed the pig, do you?” retorts Mr. Bucket, with a stedfast look, but without loss of temper.

“No!”

“Why, they killed him,” says Mr. Bucket, “on account of his having so much cheek. Don’t you get into the same position, because it isn’t worthy of you. You ain’t in the habit of conversing with a deaf person, are you?”

“Yes,” snarls Mr. Smallweed, “my wife’s deaf.”

“That accounts for your pitching your voice so high. But as she ain’t here, just pitch it an octave or two lower, will you, and I’ll not only be obliged to you, but it’ll do you more credit,” says Mr. Bucket. “This other gentleman is in the preaching line, I think?”

“Name of Chadband,” Mr. Smallweed puts in, speaking henceforth in a much lower key.

“Once had a friend and brother serjeant of the same name,” says Mr. Bucket, offering his hand, “and consequently feel a liking for it. Mrs. Chadband, no doubt?”

“And Mrs. Snagsby,” Mr. Smallweed introduces.

“Husband a law stationer, and a friend of my own,” says Mr. Bucket. “Love him like a brother!—Now, what’s up?”

“Do you mean what business have we come upon?” Mr. Smallweed asks, a little dashed by the suddenness of this turn.

“Ah! Yon know what I mean. Let us hear what it’s all about in presence of Sir Leicester Dedlock, Baronet. Come.”

Mr. Smallweed, beckoning Mr. Chadband, takes a moment’s coimsel with him in a whisper. Mr. Chadband, expressing a considerable