CHAPTER III
ANOTHER MAN.
AS the disappearing skirts of the ladies ascended the Veneering staircase, Mortimer following them forth from the dining-room, turned into a library of bran-new books, in bran-new bindings liberally gilded, and requested to see the messenger who had brought the paper. He was a boy of about fifteen. Mortimer looked at the boy, and the boy looked at the bran-new pilgrims on the wall, going to Canterbury in more gold frame than procession, and more carving than country.
" Whose writing is this? "
" Mine, sir."
" Who told you to write it?"
" My father, Jesse Hexam."
" Is it he who found the body? "
" Yes, sir."
" What is your father? "
The boy hesitated, looked reproachfully at the pilgrims as if they had involved him in a little difficulty, then said, folding a plait in the right leg of his trousers, " He gets his living along-shore."
" Is it far?"
" Is which far? " asked the boy, upon his guard, and again upon the road to Canterbury.
" To your father's?"
" It's a goodish stretch, sir. I come up in a cab, and the
