"—O Lor'! here's a heap of it, master!"
"Skip the long syllables an' get on."
"H'm—m—"
'—acquitted themselves to the astonishment of the judges, and of everybody else in the field. Search out the lady, as our Gallic neighbours say.'
—"Where's Gallic?"
"Don't know. Ask Shake Benny. He supplies the Troy Notes to the
'Herald.'"
"Oh, does he?"
"Yes: he gets his gossip off Philp; and dresses it up. That's how it's done. Philp has a nose like a ferret's: but he was unfort'nit in his education. You may trust Philp to get at the facts—leastways you can trust him for gossip: but he can't dress anything up. . . . Why, what's the matter with the child?"
Fancy Tabb never laughed: and this was the queerer because she had a sense of humour beyond her years. Though by no means a gleeful child she could express glee naturally enough: but a joke merely affected her with silent convulsive twitchings, as though the risible faculties struggled somewhere within her but could not bring the laugh to birth.
These spasms of mirth, whatever had provoked them, were cut short—and her explanation too—by a heavy footstep on the stairs.