"I don't understand."
"Wouldn't you like to go out to America or Australia, and start afresh?"
"Why, yes; but we haven't got a penny to go with."
"No more we have, that's true," chuckled Mr. Gartley. "You say uncommon clever things sometimes, Jane. No, we've not got a penny-piece to pay our fares—at present."
"Nothing. Don't you begin askin' questions. You'd best keep a still tongue in your head and shut your eyes, as far as I'm concerned."
"Oh, Bob! You're never going to be at some of your old tricks? I tell you it's not safe. A stray hare now and again is bad enough, but when it comes to——"
"Shut up!" commanded Mr. Gartley angrily. "I'll mind my own business, and you may mind yours. Go and turn those squalling brats off the door-step, they send me mad with their noise. I'll make 'em go to Church another time, clothes or no clothes. Parson may put 'em in clean pinafores, if he's so anxious to have 'em at Sunday school."
Mrs. Gartley fled to disperse her family, and wisely refrained from any further inquiries about her husband's intentions; arguments, she knew, were wasted upon him, and it was useless to distress herself with too close a knowledge of his devious methods of acquiring a living.
"I can guess what he's after," she thought. "And if he's caught, they'll give he seven years. It'll mean the poorhouse for I and the children. Well, it's no use talkin', for once Bob's set his mind on a thing, do it he will."