“Sha’n’t, so there,” growled Jotty, his shrill voice becoming gruff as if the change to manhood had suddenly taken place.
“You shall.”
Jotty made no reply, but looked at both gentlemen with a mulish expression evidently determined not to speak. “It’s wuth a quid or two,” he muttered after a long pause.
“What is worth a quid or two?” demanded Alan, eyeing him with a strong dislike, for he objected to the brat’s obstinacy.
“What I knows.”
“What do you know?”
“That’s tellin’s.”
“If I give you a quid, as you call it, will you tell.”
“Yessir,” said Jotty promptly, and held out a curved claw in which Alan, as promptly, placed a sovereign. The boy bit it to prove its quality and then spat on it for luck. “I knows someone es wos with him es wos good t’ me, on that night,” said Jotty, agreeably supplying the information.
“Who was the person?” asked Latimer, while Alan winced, quite expecting to hear the name of Sorley.