trickiness.

"Ah!" said Mr. Clodd admiringly, as he pocketed the six half-crowns
that the lady handed up to him. "If only they were all like you,
Mrs. Postwhistle!"

"Wouldn't be no need of chaps like you to worry 'em," pointed out
Mrs. Postwhistle.

"It's an irony of fate, my being a rent-collector, when you come to
think of it," remarked Mr. Clodd, writing out the receipt. "If I
had my way, I'd put an end to landlordism, root and branch. Curse
of the country."

"Just the very thing I wanted to talk to you about," returned the
lady--"that lodger o' mine."

"Ah! don't pay, don't he? You just hand him over to me. I'll soon
have it out of him."

"It's not that," explained Mrs. Postwhistle. "If a Saturday
morning 'appened to come round as 'e didn't pay up without me
asking, I should know I'd made a mistake--that it must be Friday.
If I don't 'appen to be in at 'alf-past ten, 'e puts it in an
envelope and leaves it on the table."

"Wonder if his mother has got any more like him?" mused Mr. Clodd.
"Could do with a few about this neighbourhood. What is it you want
to say about him, then? Merely to brag about him?"