But when Lord Colambre arrived at Old Court, Suffolk, he found all the gates locked, and no admittance to be had.

At last an old woman came out of the porter's lodge, who said Mr.Reynolds was not there, and she could not say where he was.

After our hero had opened her heart by the present of half a guinea, she explained, that she 'could not JUSTLY say where he was, because that he never let anybody of his own people know where he was any day; he had several different houses and places in different parts, and far-off counties, and other shires, as she heard, and by times he was at one, and by times at another.' The names of two of the places, Toddrington and Little Wrestham, she knew; but there were others to which she could give no direction.

He had houses in odd parts of London, too, that he let; and sometimes, when the lodgers' time was out, he would go, and be never heard of for a month, maybe, in one of them.

In short, there was no telling or saying where he was or would be one day of the week, by where he had been the last.' When Lord Colambre expressed some surprise that an old gentleman, as he conceived Mr.Ralph Reynolds to be, should change places so frequently, the old woman answered, 'That though her master was a deal on the wrong side of seventy, and though, to look at him, you'd think he was glued to his chair, and would fall to pieces if he should stir out of it, yet was as alert, and thought no more of going about, than if he was as young as the gentleman who was now speaking to her.