“Don’t speak in so loud a tone, you noisy wretch!” exclaimed Laura. “Can’t you say what you have to say in a lower tone?”
“Oh, I beg pardon, I forgot. We are not in Whitechapel now, but among the aristocracy. I forgot.”
“Well, don’t forgot next time,” suggested the Smoucher.
“All right, governor. It’s a way I’ve got, ’specially when I am speaking of the Prince; but Lord bless him he never keeps his own long. His blunt is blewed as soon as it is got.”
“Hush!” cried Laura Stanbridge. “I hear his step—he has come in by the back way.”
“Oh, you know his step—do you?”
“I should think I did. Silence, hark—yes, ’tis he!”
A tall, slim, young man entered the room. His features were almost womanly in their grace and beauty, but there was an expression upon them which it would be impossible to define, and which seemed to emanate from the eyes more than from any other feature, which were of a cold and cruel grey.
“I hope I haven’t kept you waiting,” said the young thief. “I know I am a little late, but it couldn’t be helped, and so now to business, pals,” he said, in a clear, sharp voice, every tone of which bespoke promptitude and decision. “You’ve both of you been too rash. There’s no doubt, after that last job which you made such a mess of, that the blue bloodhounds will soon be after you.”
“We shall be chanted in the leer (advertised in the papers) to-morrow,” said the cracksman, in the brutal language of his craft. “We must speel-to-the drum (go into the country), captain.”