Oliver Twist (Barnes & Noble Classics) - Charles Dickens [137]
“Oh! what is to be done?” cried Rose. “Dear, dear! why did they send for these people?”
“Why, indeed!” exclaimed Mrs. Maylie. “I would not have had them here, for the world.”
“All I know is,” said Mr. Losberne, at last: sitting down with a kind of desperate calmness, “that we must try and carry it off with a bold face. The object is a good one, and that must be our excuse. The boy has strong symptoms of fever upon him, and is in no condition to be talked to any more; that’s one comfort. We must make the best of it; and if bad be the best, it is no fault of ours. Come in!”
“Well, master,” said Blathers, entering the room followed by his colleague, and making the door fast, before he said any more. “This warn’t a put-up thing.”
“And what the devil’s a put-up thing?” demanded the doctor, impatiently.
Oliver waited on by Bow-street Runners
“We call it a put-up robbery, ladies,” said Blathers, turning to them, as if he pitied their ignorance, but had a contempt for the doctor’s, “when the servants is in it.”
“Nobody suspected them, in this case,” said Mrs. Maylie.
“Wery likely not, ma’am,” replied Blathers; “but they might have been in it, for all that.”
“More likely on that wery account,” said Duff
“We find it was a town hand,” said Blathers, continuing his report; “for the style of work is first-rate.”
“Wery pretty indeed it is,” remarked Duff, in an undertone.
“There was two of ’em in it,” continued Blathers; “and they had a boy with em; that’s plain from the size of the window. That’s all to be said at present. We’ll see this lad that you’ve got up stairs at once, if you please.”
“Perhaps they will take something to drink first, Mrs. Maylie?” said the doctor: his face brightening, as if some new thought had occurred to him.
“Oh! to be sure!” exclaimed Rose, eagerly. “You shall have it immediately, if you will.”
“Why, thank you, miss!” said Blathers, drawing his coat-sleeve across his mouth; “it’s dry work, this sort of duty. Anythink that’s handy, miss; don’t put yourself out of the way, on our accounts.”
“What shall it be?” asked the doctor, following the young lady to the sideboard.
“A little drop of spirits, master, if it’s all the same,” replied Blathers. “It’s a cold ride from London, ma’am: and I always find that spirits comes home warmer to the feelings.”
This interesting communication was addressed to Mrs. Maylie, who received it very graciously. While it was being conveyed to her, the doctor slipped out of the room.
“Ah!” said Mr. Blathers: not holding his wine-glass by the stem, but grasping the bottom between the thumb and forefinger of his left hand: and placing it in front of his chest; “I have seen a good many pieces of business like this, in my time, ladies.”
“That crack down in the back lane at Edmonton, Blathers,” said Mr. Duff, assisting his colleague’s memory.
“That was something in this way, warn’t it?” rejoined Mr. Blathers; “that was done by Conkey Chickweed, that was.”
“You always gave that to him,” replied Duff. “It was the Family Pet, I tell you. Conkey hadn’t any more to do with it than I had.”
“Get out!” retorted Mr. Blathers; “I know better. Do you mind that time when Conkey was robbed of his money, though? What a start that was! Better than any novel-book I ever see!”
“What was that?” inquired Rose: anxious to encourage any symptoms of good-humour in the unwelcome visitors.
“It was a robbery, miss, that hardly anybody would have been down upon,” said Blathers. “This here Conkey Chickweed—”
“Conkey means Nosey, ma’am,” interposed Duff.
“Of course the lady knows that, don’t she?” demanded Mr. Blathers. “Always interrupting, you are, partner! This here Conkey Chickweed, miss, kept a public-house over Battlebridge way,