"Well, where have been? You're like a cat or a policeman--never to be found when you're wanted. There was a fine lady came to see you this morning--a real swell, my girl." He laughed coarsely. "But of course, you were out of the way. Where had you got to?"
"Anywhere, nowhere," replied Jessica, who did not fear him when he was sober, though she hated him always.
"Ah, that's the style! The swell lady ought to have heard you talk like that. She'd say I was bringing you up well. Come here and let's have a look at you."
Jessica did not move, but stared at him steadily.
"What! You won't come?" he said with a grin. "Well, there's something for your obstinacy, you little mule!"
He flung a half-crown across to her, and Jessica took it up, then looked him questioningly in the face.
"You're thinking I'm mighty generous, eh? So I am, my girl--foolishly generous." He laughed mockingly, "Well, what do you say if all the lot's for you, eh?"
"All for me!" repeated the girl, stopping short in her task of making the mantelshelf neat; "all for me!"
"Yes, when you get it, little cat! All for you, indeed! No! it's for me; and I've a good mind to take the half-crown back. A fool and his money's soon parted; but he's more idiotic to part with other people's. I'm going out. I shall want some grub when I get back--'arf a pound of steak, an' a pot of porter, an' don't forget the gin. Mind you remember now, or I'll break every bone in your body." With which forcible admonition the man shuffled out.
After a few hours he returned, not blindly drunk, but spiteful, ill-tempered, and stupidly brutal.