The click of the front-door latch, followed by his firm step overhead, was their signal, and up they would come, tumbling over each other in their eagerness to reach his cheeks--straight up, their paws scraping his clothes; then a swoop into the dining-room, when they would be "downed" to the floor, their eyes following his every movement.
Nor had his own financial situation begun as yet to trouble him.

Todd and Pawson, however, had long since become nervous.

More than once had they put their heads together for some plan by which sufficient money could be raised for current expenses.

In this praiseworthy effort, to Todd's unbounded astonishment, Pawson had one night developed a plan in which the greatly feared and much-despised Gadgem was to hold first place.

Indeed on the very morning succeeding the receipt of Pawson's letter and at an hour when St.George would be absent at the club, there had come a brisk rat-a-tat on the front door and Gadgem had sidled in.
Todd had not seen the collector since that eventful morning when he stood by ready to pick up the pieces of that gentleman's dismembered body when his master was about to throw him into the street for doubting his word, and he now studied him with the greatest interest.