‘What somebody?’ blustered Brass.
‘Why, what do you call him—Kit.’
‘Mr Garland’s young man?’
‘To be sure.’
‘Never!’ cried Brass. ‘Never. I’ll not hear of it. Don’t tell me’—said Sampson, shaking his head, and working with both his hands as if he were clearing away ten thousand cobwebs. ‘I’ll never believe it of him. Never!’
‘I say,’ repeated Miss Brass, taking another pinch of snuff, ‘that he’s the thief.’
‘I say,’ returned Sampson violently, ‘that he is not. What do you mean? How dare you? Are characters to be whispered away like this? Do you know that he’s the honestest and faithfullest fellow that ever lived, and that he has an irreproachable good name? Come in, come in!’
These last words were not addressed to Miss Sally, though they partook of the tone in which the indignant remonstrances that preceded them had been uttered. They were addressed to some person who had knocked at the office-door; and they had hardly passed the lips of Mr Brass, when this very Kit himself looked in.
‘Is the gentleman up-stairs, sir, if you please?’
‘Yes, Kit,’ said Brass, still fired with an honest indignation, and frowning with knotted brows upon his sister; ‘Yes Kit, he is. I am glad to see you Kit, I am rejoiced to see you. Look in again, as you come down-stairs, Kit. That lad a robber!’ cried Brass when he had withdrawn, ‘with that frank and open countenance! I’d trust him with untold gold. Mr Richard, sir, have the goodness to step directly to Wrasp and Co.‘s in Broad Street, and inquire if they have had instructions to appear in Carkem and Painter. That lad a robber,’ sneered Sampson, flushed and heated with his wrath. ‘Am I blind, deaf, silly; do I know nothing of human nature when I see it before me? Kit a robber! Bah!’