The above exordium
may appear to you tedious, but it is only just to myself to remind you
that you are not dealing with a vulgar hireling. My first step, after
duly meditating your suggestions, was to find a fitting watch for the
movements of Hawkehurst. I opined that the best person to play the spy
would be that class of man whose existence seems for the most part
devoted to the lounging at street corners, the chewing of straw, and that
desultory kind of industry known in the _patois_ of this race as
"fetching errands." This is the man, or boy, who starts up from the
pavement (as through a trap-door in the flags) whenever one alights from
or would enter any kind of vehicle. Unbidden, unrequired, and obnoxious,
the creature arises, and opens a door, or lays some rag of his wretched
attire on a muddy wheel, and then whines, piteous, for a copper. Such a
man, or such a boy, I felt convinced must exist among the hangers-on of
the Royal Hotel; nor was I mistaken. On inquiring for a handy lad,
capable of attending upon my needs at all hours in the day, and not a
servant in the hotel, but a person who would be wholly at my own
disposal, I was informed that the Boots had a younger brother who was
skilled in the fetching of errands, and who would be happy to wait upon
me for a very reasonable remuneration, or in the words of the waiter
himself, would be ready to leave it--i.
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