"Got such a family I can't afford more
than one ounce a week. Nothing but dust here."
"I haven't any tobacco with me," Burton regretted, "but I'll stand a
couple of ounces, with pleasure," he added, producing a shilling.
The man pocketed the coin without undue exhilaration, struck a vilely
smelling match, and lit the fragment of filth at the bottom of his pipe.
"About those oddments of furniture?" Burton reminded him.
"Stolen," the man asserted gloomily,--"stolen under our very eyes, as
it were. Some one must have nipped in just as you did this morning, and
whisked them off. Easy done with a covered truck outside and us so
wrapped up in our work, so to speak."
"When was this?" Burton demanded, eagerly.
"Day afore yesterday."
"Does Mr. Waddington know about it?"
The man removed his pipe from his teeth and gazed intently at his
questioner.
"Is this Mr. Waddington you're a-speaking of a red-faced
gentleman--kind of auctioneer or agent? Looks as though he could shift
a drop?"
Burton recognized the description.
"That," he assented, "is Mr. Waddington."
The workman replaced the pipe in the corner of his mouth and nodded
deliberately.
"He knows right enough, he does.
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