IV
A CLUE
"Something is rotten in the State of Denmark."
Hamlet.
THE cook of the establishment being now called, that portly, ruddy-faced individual stepped forward with alacrity, displaying upon her good-humored countenance such an expression of mingled eagerness and anxiety that more than one person present found it difficult to restrain a smile at her appearance. Observing this and taking it as a compliment, being a woman as well as a cook, she immediately dropped a curtsey, and opening her lips was about to speak, when the coroner, rising impatiently in his seat, took the word from her mouth by saying sternly:
"Your name?"
"Katherine Malone, sir."
"Well, Katherine, how long have you been in Mr. Leavenworth’s service?"
"Shure, it is a good twelvemonth now, sir, since I came, on Mrs. Wilson’s ricommindation, to that very front door, and"
“Never mind the front door, but tell us why you left this Mrs. Wilson?”
“Shure, and it was she as left me, being as she went sailing to the ould country the same day when on her recommendation I came to this very front door”
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