CHAPTER XXXVIII.
SIR RICHARD PRIES INTO TODD’S SECRETS.
Crotchet soon reached the attic floor of the shoemaker’s house, and although in profound darkness, he managed, as he thought, to touch the right door. Tap! tap! went Crotchet’s knuckles, and as he did so he followed a habit very general, when the knock is only a matter of ceremony, and opened the door at the same moment. He popped his head into a room where there was a light, and said—
“Here yer is.”
A scream was the reply to him, and then Crotchet saw, by the state of affairs there, that he had made a little mistake in the topography of the attic landing. The attic in which he found himself, for he had crossed the threshold, was in the occupation of an elderly gaunt-looking female, who was comforting her toes by keeping them imme
