"What do you know about it?" said he, roughly.
"I'll tell you," said Monckton, coolly.
He then walked in a most leisurely way to the gate that led into the meadow whose eastern boundary was Hope's quick-set hedge, and he came in the same leisurely way up to Mr. Bartley, and leaned his back, with his hands behind him, with perfect effrontery, against the palings.
"I know all," said he. "I overheard you in your office fourteen years ago, when you changed children with Hope."
Bartley uttered an exclamation of dismay.
"And I've been hovering about here all day, and watched the little game, and now I am fly, and no mistake."
Bartley threw up his hands in dismay. "Then it's all over; I am doubly ruined. I can not hope to silence you both."
"Don't speak so loud, governor."
"Why not?" said Bartley, "others will, if I don't." He lowered his voice for all that, and wondered what was coming.
"Listen to me," said Monckton, exchanging his cynical manner for a quiet and weighty one.