Emmeline lost the rest of the sentence in her fright and dismay at being almost knocked down by a ragged, dirty, and altogether disreputable little tramp, who rushed out into the road looking the very picture of guilt.
‘Diamond Jubilee!!!!!!’ she gasped, with at least six notes of horror in her voice, but terror of the promised warming had lent wings to Diamond Jubilee’s usually laggard feet, and he flew past her quite unheeding. He never once stopped till forty good yards lay between himself and the farm; then he turned round, and after making quite sure that he was not being pursued, gave vent to language which it was just as well Micky and Emmeline were too far off to catch. As it was they merely got the benefit of the eloquent gesture—a favourite one in Diamond Jubilee’s circle—by which he expressed his utter and unspeakable contempt for the farmer.
Perhaps it was then for the first time that Emmeline fully realised the appalling amount of training her adopted son would need before he would be at all a satisfactory missionary.
‘Micky, he’s a dreadful little boy!’ she gasped.
Indignation caused her to quicken her pace, and as Diamond Jubilee, now no longer in fear of pursuit, was sauntering along like the proverbial snail, they soon overtook him. He greeted them with a cool ‘Hello!’
‘Diamond Jubilee, I can’t tell you how ashamed and grieved I am,’ began Emmeline, in the voice which she considered suitable to a sorrow-stricken and virtuous parent addressing an unworthy child.
Diamond Jubilee gave her an impudent stare.
‘Garn!’ he said. ‘What are you getting at me for?’
‘I’m much too upset to “get” at you as you call it,’ said Emmeline, sorrowfully. ‘To think of you robbing an orchard, Diamond Jubilee, and after all I said to you this morning, too!’
It is painful to have to relate what followed, but as this is a true history of Diamond Jubilee Jones and of Micky, his adopted father, the regrettable incident cannot be shirked. Instead of being moved to penitence by Emmeline’s appeal, Diamond Jubilee’s only answer was to jerk his forefinger and thumb into a repetition of his former gesture, only this time it was pointed not towards the farm, but at Emmeline herself.