 has any soul at all, sir, it must be such a very
small one that it don't signify what he does or doesn't in that way. Good night,
sir!«
    The guest rejoined »God bless you!« with a fervour that was quite affecting;
and John, beckoning his guards to go before, bowed himself out of the room, and
left him to his rest in the Maypole's ancient bed.
 

                                  Chapter XIII

If Joseph Willet, the denounced and proscribed of 'prentices, had happened to be
at home when his father's courtly guest presented himself before the Maypole
door - that is, if it had not perversely chanced to be one of the half-dozen
days in the whole year on which he was at liberty to absent himself for as many
hours without question or reproach - he would have contrived, by hook or crook,
to dive to the very bottom of Mr. Chester's mystery, and to come at his purpose
with as much certainty as though he had been his confidential adviser. In that
fortunate case, the lovers would have had quick warning of the ills that
threatened them, and the aid of various timely and wise suggestions to boot; for
all Joe's readiness of thought and action, and all his sympathies and good
wishes, were enlisted in favour of the young people, and were staunch in
devotion to their cause. Whether this disposition arose out of his old
prepossessions, in favour of the young lady, whose history had surrounded her in
his mind, almost from his cradle, with circumstances of unusual interest; or
from his attachment towards the young gentleman, into whose confidence he had,
through his shrewdness and alacrity, and the rendering of sundry important
services as a spy and messenger, almost imperceptibly glided; whether they had
their origin in either of these sources, or in the habit natural to youth, or in
the constant badgering and worrying of his venerable parent, or in any hidden
little love affair of his own which gave him something of a fellow-feeling in
the matter, it is needless to inquire - especially as Joe was out of the way,
and had no opportunity on that particular occasion of testifying to his
sentiments either on one side or the other.
    It was, in fact, the twenty-fifth of March, which, as most people know to
their cost, is, and has been time out of mind, one of those unpleasant epochs
termed quarter-days. On this twenty-fifth of March, it was John Willet's pride
annually to settle, in
