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‘Oh, the landlord sent you? All right, then.’

‘Correct, sir,’ said the plumber affably. ‘While I’ve been ‘ere, I took the freedom of going all over this little ‘ouse, and a nice cosy little ‘ouse you’ve made of it, for such a nouse as it is! You’ve done it up very tysty–very tysty you’ve done this little ‘ouse up; and I’ve some claim to speak, seein’ as how I’ve had the decoration throughout of a many ‘ouses in my time, likewise mansions. You ain’t been too ambitious, which is the error most parties falls into with small ‘ouses. Now the parties as ‘ad the place before you–by the name o’ Rummles–well, I daresay they satisfied theirselves, but the ‘ouse never looked right–not to my taste, it didn’t!’

‘George, get rid of this person!’ said Ella rapidly, under her breath, in French. Unfortunately, George’s acquaintance with that tongue was about on a par with the plumber’s, and he remained passive.

The plumber now proceeded to put down his mechanic’s straw-bag upon the hall-table, which he did with great care, as if it were of priceless stuff and contained fragile articles; having done this, he posed himself with one elbow resting on the post at the foot of the staircase, like a grimy statue of Shakespeare.

‘Ah,’ he said, shaking his touzled head, ‘this ain’t the fust time I’ve been ‘ere in my puffessional capacity, not by a long way. Not by a long way, it ain’t. Mr. Rummles, him as I mentioned to you afore, and a nice pleasant-spoken gentleman he was, too–in the tea trade–Mr. Rummles, he allus sent round for me whenever there was hany odd jobs as wanted doin’, and in course I was allus pleased to get ’em, be they hodd or hotherwise.’

‘Er-exactly,’ said George, as soon as he could put in a word; ‘but you see, this lady and I—-‘

The plumber, however, did not abandon his position, and seemed determined that they should hear him:

‘I know, sir–I see how things were with you with ‘arf a glance; but afore we go any further, it’s right you should know ‘oo I am and all about me. Jest ‘ear what I’m goin’ to tell you, for it’s somethink out of the common way, though gospel-truth. It’s a melinkly reflection for a man in my station of life, but’–and here he lowered his voice to a solemn pitch–‘I’ve never set foot inside of this ‘ere ‘ouse without somethink ‘appens more or less immejit. Ah, it’s true, though. Seems almost like as if I brought a fatality in along o’ me. Don’t you interrupt; you wait till I’m done, and see if I’m talking at random or without facks to support me. Well, fust time as ever I was sent for ‘ere was in regard to drains, as they couldn’t flush satisfactory. I did my work and come away. Not three weeks arter, Miss Rummles, the heldest gell, was took ill with typhoid. Never the same young lady again–nor yet she never won’t be neither, not if she lives to a nundered. “Nothing very hodd about that?” says you. Wait a bit. Next time, it was the kitching copper as had got all furred up like. I tinkered that up to rights, and come away. Well, afore I’d even made out my account, that identical copper blew up and scalded the cook dreadful! “Coppers will play these games,” you sez. All right, then; but you let me finish. Third time there was a flaw in one of the gas-brackets in the spare room. I soddered it up and I come away. Soon arterwards, a day or two as it might be, Mrs. Rummles ‘ad ‘er mar a-stayin’ with her, and the old lady slep in that very room, and was laid up weeks! “Curus,” says I, when I come to ‘ear of it, “very curus!” and it set me a-thinkin’. Last time but one–‘ere, lemme see–that was a bell-‘anging job, I think–no, I’m wrong, it was drains agen, so it were–drains it was agen. And the next thing I ‘eard was that Mrs. Rummles was a-layin’ at death’s door with the diffthery! The last time–ah, I recklect well, I was called in to see if somethink wasn’t wrong with the ballcock in the top cistin. I see there was somethink, and I come away as usual. That day week, old Mr. Rummles was took with a fit on the floor in the back droring-room, which broke up the ‘ouse!