He was a little surprised to perceive that the sounds were occasioned by
the progress upstairs of a trunk, which the single gentleman and his
coachman were endeavoring to convey up the steep ascent. Mr. Swiveller
followed slowly behind, entering a new protest on every stair against
the house of Mr. Sampson Brass being thus taken by storm.
To these remonstrances the single gentleman answered not a word, but
when the trunk was at last got into the bedroom, sat down upon it, and
wiped his bald head with his handkerchief. He then announced abruptly
that he would take the room for two years, whereupon, handing a
ten-pound note to the astonished Mr. Swiveller, he began to make ready
to retire, as if it were night instead of day, and Mr. Swiveller walked
downstairs into the office again, filled with wonderment concerning both
the strange new lodger and the small servant who had appeared to
answer the bell.
After that day, one circumstance troubled Mr. Swiveller's mind very
much, and that was, that the small servant always remained somewhere in
the bowels of the earth under Bevis Marks, and never came to the surface
unless a bell rang, when she would answer it, and immediately disappear
again. She never went out, or came into the office, or had a clean face,
or took off the coarse apron, or looked out of any of the windows, or
stood at the street door for a breath of air, or had any rest or
enjoyment whatever.
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