“What the dickens ’as that got to do with you?”
“Keep a civil tongue in your head, you scoundrel!” I said sharply, taking a step towards him. “Answer me like that again, and I’ll give you a lesson you won’t forget!”
“You, yer bloomin’ monkey!” he snarled, spitting on the ground in front of me as an outward and visible sign of his contempt. “You give me a lesson! And where should I be, do yer think?”
I looked him full in the face and shot my bolt.
“You would be in prison, my good fellow, for harbouring a murderer, disguised as a woman, and you’d be charged with being an accessory after the fact.”
He stepped back, paling visibly under his bronze complexion, and answered, for once, without an oath.
“’E ain’t a murderer. ’E’s a private soldier wot struck ’is superior officer for comin’ between ’im and ’is wife, and then deserted. I see it myself in the paper ’e showed me, and I’d ’a done the same if I’d bin in ’is place. And so ’ud you, Mister.”
“Ho, ho! my friend,” I said to myself. “I was a ‘monkey’ a moment ago—now I’m a ‘Mister.’ So you are funking it already, are you?”
And then, aloud,—
“Do you think any jury will believe that you thought a private soldier could afford to pay you what that man’s paying? Now, look here! I’ve got the whip hand of you, but I don’t wish you any harm, personally. If you’ll do exactly as I tell you, and play me fair, I’ll pay you the sum that yonder man’s paying you, and you sha’n’t get into any trouble if I can help it.”