anything more definite than a muttered farrago in which the words
"Certain things ... Mrs. Barrett ... respectable house ... if the cap
fits ... proceedings that shall be nameless," had been constantly
repeated.

"Not that I make any charge--" he had concluded.

"Charge!" Oleron had cried.

"I 'ave my idears of things, as I don't doubt you 'ave yours--"

"Ideas--mine!" Oleron had cried wrathfully, immediately dropping his
voice as heads had appeared at windows of the square. "Look you here, my
man; you've an unwholesome mind, which probably you can't help, but a
tongue which you can help, and shall! If there is a breath of this
repeated ..."

"I'll not be talked to on my own doorstep like this by anybody,..."
Barrett had blustered....

"You shall, and I'm doing it ..."

"Don't you forget there's a Gawd above all, Who 'as said..."

"You're a low scandalmonger!..."

And so forth, continuing badly what was already badly begun. Oleron had
returned wrathfully to his own house, and thenceforward, looking out
of his windows, had seen Barrett's face at odd times, lifting blinds or
peering round curtains, as if he sought to put himself in possession of