“Old witch! Have she been burning any one’s shirt fronts. I say, Jem, you see if Lavinia is in the kitchen, and tell her old Callendar has been burning holes in her stockings or collars, and has sent a young scarecrow to tell her.”
John opened his mouth to say it was no such thing; but the under shoeblack, who was a sort of slave to Boots, made an ugly face at him, and was gone, turning coach wheels across the yard. In another minute Lavinia, a nice brisk looking young woman, had come up with, “Well, young man, what has Mrs Callendar been after now?”
“Please, ma’am, nothing; but she said as how I was to ask for you. It’s for Captain Carbonel, ma’am, a message from Uphill—that’s his home.”
“Captain Carbonel—that’s Number Seven,” she said, consulting a slate that hung near the bar. “He was to be called at eight o’clock. Won’t that do?”
“Oh no, no, ma’am,” implored John, thinking that the captain was taking his rest away from home. “It’s very particular, and I have come all night with it.”
“You have got to call Number Five for the High Flier at half-past six,” she said, turning to Boots. “Could not you take up word at the same time?”
“Catch me running errands for a jackanapes like that,” said Boots, with a contemptuous shrug, turning away, and brushing at his shoe.
“Never mind him,” said good-natured Lavinia. “What shall I say, young man?”
“Oh, thank you, miss. Say that John Hewlett have brought him a message from Uphill.”
“Jack Owlet! Oh my! Hoo! hoo!” exclaimed the blacking boy, as soon as Lavinia had disappeared up the stairs, dancing about with his hands on his hips. “Look here, Tom,”—to a boy with a pail, who had just come in—“here be an Owlet’s just flown in out of the mud. Hoo! hoo! Where did you get that ’ere patch on your back.”