The sprightly Rob, whose sprightliness was very much diminished by the salutation, looked exceedingly dismayed, and said, with the water rising in his eyes:
“Oh! why can’t you leave a poor cove alone, Misses Brown, when he’s getting an honest livelihood and conducting himself respectable? What do you come and deprive a cove of his character for, by talking to him in the streets, when he’s taking his master’s horse to a honest stable—a horse you’d go and sell for cats’ and dogs’ meat if you had your way! Why, I thought,” said the Grinder, producing his concluding remark as if it were the climax of all his injuries, “that you was dead long ago!”
“This is the way,” cried the old woman, appealing to her daughter, “that he talks to me, who knew him weeks and months together, my deary, and have stood his friend many and many a time among the pigeon-fancying tramps and bird-catchers.”
“Let the birds be, will you, Misses Brown?” retorted Rob, in a tone of the acutest anguish. “I think a cove had better have to do with lions than them little creeturs, for they’re always flying back in your face when you least expect it. Well, how d’ye do and what do you want?” These polite inquiries the Grinder uttered, as it were under protest, and with great exasperation and vindictiveness.
“Hark how he speaks to an old friend, my deary!” said Mrs Brown, again appealing to her daughter. “But there’s some of his old friends not so patient as me. If I was to tell some that he knows, and has spotted and cheated with, where to find him—”
“Will you hold your tongue, Misses Brown?” interrupted the miserable Grinder, glancing quickly round, as though he expected to see his master’s teeth shining at his elbow. “What do you take a pleasure in ruining a cove for? At your time of life too! when you ought to be thinking of a variety of things!”
“What a gallant horse!” said the old woman, patting the animal’s neck.
“Let him alone, will you, Misses Brown?” cried Rob, pushing away her hand. “You’re enough to drive a penitent cove mad!”
“Why, what hurt do I do him, child?” returned the old woman.
“Hurt?” said Rob. “He’s got a master that would find it out if he was touched with a straw.” And he blew upon the place where the old woman’s hand had rested for a moment, and smoothed it gently with his finger, as if he seriously believed what he said.