Still, I felt
something stirring uneasily against him in my mind. "Can't you give that
other person a name?" I said.
"Can't you, Mr. Betteredge?"
"No."
Sergeant Cuff stood stock still, and surveyed me with a look of
melancholy interest.
"It's always a pleasure to me to be tender towards human infirmity," he
said. "I feel particularly tender at the present moment, Mr. Betteredge,
towards you. And you, with the same excellent motive, feel particularly
tender towards Rosanna Spearman, don't you? Do you happen to know
whether she has had a new outfit of linen lately?"
What he meant by slipping in this extraordinary question unawares, I was
at a total loss to imagine. Seeing no possible injury to Rosanna if I
owned the truth, I answered that the girl had come to us rather sparely
provided with linen, and that my lady, in recompense for her good
conduct (I laid a stress on her good conduct), had given her a new
outfit not a fortnight since.
"This is a miserable world," says the Sergeant. "Human life, Mr.
Betteredge, is a sort of target--misfortune is always firing at it, and
always hitting the mark. But for that outfit, we should have discovered
a new nightgown or petticoat among Rosanna's things, and have nailed
her in that way.
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