‘Will your father be long?’ he inquired.
‘I don’t know. I can’t say.’
‘As you supposed he was at home, it would seem that he has just gone out? How’s that?’
‘I supposed he had come home,’ Pleasant explained.
‘Oh! You supposed he had come home? Then he has been some time out? How’s that?’
‘I don’t want to deceive you. Father’s on the river in his boat.’
‘At the old work?’ asked the man.
‘I don’t know what you mean,’ said Pleasant, shrinking a step back. ‘What on earth d’ye want?’
‘I don’t want to hurt your father. I don’t want to say I might, if I chose. I want to speak to him. Not much in that, is there? There shall be no secrets from you; you shall be by. And plainly, Miss Riderhood, there’s nothing to be got out of me, or made of me. I am not good for the Leaving Shop, I am not good for the Boarding-House, I am not good for anything in your way to the extent of sixpenn’orth of halfpence. Put the idea aside, and we shall get on together.’
‘But you’re a seafaring man?’ argued Pleasant, as if that were a sufficient reason for his being good for something in her way.