With his first snore, Patty flew over to me.
“Who is it?” she whispered, frantic.
“It is a wise father that knows his own child.”
“Father?” she said.
“Hush!” I answered; “yes.” And would say no more till he woke.
He came to himself presently, in a properer sense of the word. During the interval I had been curiously observing his condition. It was very different in seeming from that of the spark of eleven years since. It showed an assumption of finery, it is true; but the trappings were tawdry and soiled, and the materials cheap.
He sat up with a prodigious yawn, his face, in the midst, lapsing into a watery, paternal smile. But it was evident at once that something of the thread of memory was restored in him; and he began questioning me much more shrewdly and to the point.
“Why, ecod,” said he presently, “was it a fact that the sweep had stole you? If I’d only learnt the truth before Charlie Buckster put a bullet in himself. I’d a double pony on it with the man.”
Then we got on famously. He cried much over his poor lost love, and was so tender with me that he completely won me from my reserve, and I ended by recounting to him the whole tale of my fortunes, even up to the present moment.
“That Herring!” he said: “a fine guardian to my girl! I knew the stoat well in my time. Let him beware, now that she has found her natural protector.”