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 "Belike 'twas somewan jist sthepped into the vesthibule, mebbe to tie her shoe, sor, and ye thought"

"Oh, very well." Maitland relinquished the inquisition as unprofitable, willing to concede O'Hagan's theory a reasonable one, the more readily since he himself could by no means have sworn that the woman had actually come out through the door. Such had merely been his impression, honest enough, but founded on circumstantial evidence.

"When you're through, O'Hagan," he told the Irishman, "you may come and shave me and lay out my things, if you will."

"Very good, sor. In wan minute."

But O'Hagan's conception of the passage of time was a thought vague: his one minute had lengthened into ten before he appeared to wait upon his employer.

Now and again, in the absence of the regular "man," O'Hagan would attend one or another of the tenants in the capacity of substitute valet: as in the present instance, when Maitland, having left his host's