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“When I was a gossoon of twenty, sor–maybe eighteen–I’m fifty now, so it’s far back enough, God knows. And it all happened, too, not far from that old ink-bottle’s place in Temple Bar. I was lookin’ at it wan day last winter when I had a fare down there that I took up in old Bond Street. I did the sweepin’ out and startin’ fires. Wan day wan of the clerks got fired because he couldn’t serve a writ on another barrister chap who owed a bill that me boss was tryin’ to collect. Nobody could git into his rooms, try every way they could. He had nigh broke the head o’ wan o’ the young fellers in the office who tried it the day before. He niver come out, but had his grub sent him. This had been goin’ on for a month. All kinds o’ games had been put up on him and he beat ’em all.

“‘I’ll do it,’ I says, ‘in a week’s time or less.’ The manager was goin’ through the office and heard the laugh they give me. ‘What’s this?’ he says, cross like. ‘Fin says he kin serve the writ,’ the clerk says. ‘I kin,’ I says, startin’ up, ‘or I’ll throw up me job.’

“‘Give him the writ,’ he says, ‘and give him two days off. It kin do no harm for him to try.’

“Well, I found the street, and went up the stairs and read the name on the door and heard somebody walkin’ around, and knew he was in. Then I lay around on the other side o’ the street to see what I could pick up in the way o’ the habits o’ the rat. I knew he couldn’t starve for a week at a time, and that something must be goin’ in, and maybe I could follow up and git me foot in the door before he could close it; but I soon found that wouldn’t work. Pretty soon a can o’ milk come and went up in a basket that he let down from his winder. As he leaned out I saw his head, and it was a worse carrot than me own. Then along come a man with a bag o’ coal on his back and a bit o’ card in his hand with the coal-yard on it and the rat’s name underneath, a-lookin’ up at the house and scratchin’ his head as to where he was goin’.

“I crossed over and says, ‘Who are ye lookin’ for’? And he hands me the card. ‘I’m his man,’ I says, ‘and I been waitin’ for ye–me master’s sick and don’t want no noise, and if ye make any I’ll lose me place. I’ll carry the bag up and dump it and bring ye the bag back and, shillin’ for yer trouble. Wait here. Hold on,’ I says; ‘take me hat and let me have yours, for I don’t git a good hat every day, and the bag’s that dirty it’ll spile it.’

“‘Go on,’ he says; ‘I’ve carried it all the way from the yard and me back’s broke.’ Well, I pulled his hat ever me eyes and started up the stairs wid the bag on me shoulder. When I got to the fust landin’ I run me hands over the bag, gittin’ ’em good and black, then I smeared me face, and up I went another flight.

“‘Who’s there?’ he says, when I knocked.

“‘Coals,’ I says.

“‘Where from?’ he says.

“I told him the name on the card. He opened the door an inch and I could see a chain between the crack.

“‘Let me see yer face,’ he says. I twisted it out from under the edge of the bag. ‘All right,’ he says, and he slipped back the chain and in I went, stoopin’ down as if it weighed a ton.

“‘Where’ll I put it?’ I says.

“‘In the box,’ he says, walkin’ toward the grate. ‘Have ye brought the bill?’