“Do you generally put that elderly young gentleman in the same room, when he’s on a visit here, Miss Summerson?” he inquired, glancing at Mr Skimpole’s usual chamber.

“You know Mr Skimpole!” said I.

“What do you call him again?” returned Mr Bucket, bending down his ear. “Skimpole, is it? I’ve often wondered what his name might be. Skimpole. Not John, I should say, nor yet Jacob?”

“Harold,” I told him.

“Harold. Yes. He’s a queer bird is Harold,” said Mr Bucket, eyeing me with great expression.

“He is a singular character,” said I.

“No idea of money,” observed Mr Bucket. — “He takes it though!”

I involuntarily returned for answer, that I perceived Mr Bucket knew him.

“Why, now I’ll tell you, Miss Summerson,” he replied. “Your mind will be all the better for not running on one point too continually, and I’ll tell you for a change. It was him as pointed out to me where Toughey was. I made up my mind, that night, to come to the door and ask for Toughey, if that was all; but, willing to try a move or so first, if any such was on the board, I just pitched up a morsel of gravel at that window where I saw a shadow. As soon as Harold opens it and I have had a look at him, thinks I, you’re the man for me. So I smoothed him down a bit, about not wanting to disturb the family after they was gone to bed, and about its being a thing to be regretted that charitable young ladies should harbour vagrants; and then, when I pretty well understood his ways, I said, I should consider a fypunnote well bestowed if I could relieve the premises of Toughey without causing any noise or trouble. Then says he, lifting up his eyebrows in the gayest way, ‘It’s no use mentioning a fypunnote to me, my friend, because I’m a mere child in such matters, and have no idea of money.’ Of course I understood what his taking it so easy meant; and being now quite sure he was the man for me, I wrapped the note round a little stone and threw it up to him. Well! He laughs and beams, and looks as innocent as you like, and says, ‘But I don’t know the value of these things. What am I to do with this?’ ‘Spend it, sir,’ says I. ‘But I shall be taken in,’ he says, ‘they won’t give me the right change, I shall lose it, it’s no use to me.’ Lord, you never saw such a face as he carried it with! Of course he told me where to find Toughey, and I found him.”

I regarded this as very treacherous on the part of Mr Skimpole towards my guardian, and as passing the usual bounds of his childish innocence.

“Bounds, my dear?” returned Mr Bucket. “Bounds? Now, Miss Summerson, I’ll give you a piece of advice that your husband will find useful when you are happily married, and have got a family about you. Whenever a person says to you that they are as innocent as can be in all concerning money, look well after your own money, for they are dead certain to collar it, if they can. Whenever a person proclaims to you ‘In worldly matters I’m a child,’ you consider that that person is only a crying off from being held accountable, and that you have got that person’s number, and it’s Number One. Now, I am not a poetical man myself, except in a vocal way when it goes round a company, but I’m a practical one, and that’s my experience. So’s this rule. Fast and loose in one thing, Fast and loose in everything. I never knew it fail. No more will you. Nor no one. With which caution to the unwary, my dear, I take the liberty of pulling this here bell, and so go back to our business.”

I believe it had not been for a moment out of his mind, any more than it had been out of my mind, or out of his face. The whole household were amazed to see me, without any notice, at that time in the morning, and so accompanied; and their surprise was not diminished by my inquiries. No one, however, had been there. It could not be doubted that this was the truth.