MISS FLYN
Police manners! I will trust myself to your protection then. [Exeunt.]
SCENE.—Police-Office.
JUSTICE, FLINT, OFFICERS, &c.
JUSTICE Before we proceed to extremities, Mr. Flint, let me entreat you to consider the consequences. What will the world say to your exposing your own child?
FLINT The world is not my friend. I belong to a profession which has long brought me acquainted with its injustice. I return scorn for scorn, and desire its censure above its plaudits.
JUSTICE
But in this case delicacy must make you pause.
FLINT Delicacy—ha! ha!—pawnbroker—how fitly these words suit. Delicate pawnbroker—delicate devil—let the law take its course.
JUSTICE
Consider, the jewels are found.
FLINT 'Tis not the silly baubles I regard. Are you a man? are you a father? and think you I could stoop so low, vile as I stand here, as to make money—filthy money—of the stuff which a daughter's touch has desecrated? Deep in some pit first I would bury them.
JUSTICE
Yet pause a little. Consider. An only child.