A valet about a man knows a great deal of a man's ways, and therefore George had no valet.
"A gentleman!" said he to the girl.

"Does the gentleman look like a public-house keeper ?" "Well, I think he do," said the girl.
"Then show him up," said George.
And the gentleman was a public-house keeper.

Vavasor was pretty sure of his visitor before he desired the servant to give him entrance.
It was Mr Grimes from the "Handsome Man" public-house and tavern, in the Brompton Road, and he had come by appointment to have a little conversation with Mr Vavasor on matters political.

Mr Grimes was a man who knew that business was business, and as such had some considerable weight in his own neighbourhood.

With him politics was business, as well as beer, and omnibus-horses, and foreign wines;--in the fabrication of which latter article Mr Grimes was supposed to have an extended experience.