William's amusement at this argued little for my hopes.
"We are very much interested in the Deacon," he suggested, with a leer; which insolence I allowed to pass unnoticed, because it best suited my plan.
"You have not answered my question," I remarked, with a forced air of anxiety.
"Oh, no," he cried, "so I haven't"; and he tried to look serious too. "Well, well, to be just, I have nothing really against the man but his mean ways. Still, if I were going to risk my life on a hazard as to who is the evil spirit of this lane, I should say Spear and done with it, he has such cursed small eyes."
"I don't think his eyes are too small," I returned loftily. Then with a sudden change of manner, I suggested anxiously: "And my opinion is shared by your sisters. They evidently think very well of him."
"Oh!" he sneered; "girls are no judges. They don't know a good man when they see him, and they don't know a bad. You mustn't go by what they say."
I had it on the tip of my tongue to ask if he did not think Lucetta sufficiently understood herself to be trusted in what she contemplated doing that night. But this was neither in accordance with my plan, nor did it seem quite loyal to Lucetta, who, so far as I knew, had not communicated her intentions to this booby brother. I therefore changed this question into a repetition of my first remark:
"Well, I still think the trick you played Deacon Spear yesterday a poor one; and I advise you, as a gentleman, to go and ask his pardon."
This was such a preposterous proposition, he could not hold his peace.
"I ask his pardon!" he snorted. "Well, Saracen, did you ever hear the like of that! I ask Deacon Spear's pardon for obliging him to be treated with as great attention as I had been myself."