"What are you going to do?" he exclaimed, starting up; "I don't choose to be locked in."
"Sit down, Mr. Bowes," said Joshua Brown, in a tone very quiet, but very stern; and at the same moment he turned the key in the lock, drew it out, and put it in his pocket. He then walked back to his seat, in the same sort of stiff, heavy manner.
There was something very impressive in that sort of semi-limp; and Mr. Bowes sat himself down again, and began playing with the buttons at the knees of his drab breeches, apparently to pass the time while waiting for an explanation.
Before he gave one, however, Joshua Brown poured himself out half-a-glass of wine, and took a sip or two, without the least hurry in the world; but at length he said--
"Now, Mingy Bowes, I dare say you want to hear why I have locked the door. It's only because I've got a word or two to say to you, which might, perhaps, make you bolt before you had heard the whole, and that would not suit me. You're a dealer in marine stores, I take it?"
"Well, I know that," said Mingy Bowes; "all the world knows that."
"Good!" said Joshua Brown; "and you keep a thieves' bank, and receive stolen goods, and run a little tobacco, and come and go between gentlemen 'on the lay' and those who take the goods up to London. There--don't interrupt me, for all the world knows that, too. Many a gold thimble, and many a silver one too, you've helped off the shelf in your day: that I know as well as you, and can prove it too when I like. But there's one thing I desire very much to hear--that's to say, what is just now behind that long iron door in your back parlour?"
This was thrown out at random, simply to create apprehension; for Joshua Brown had not the slightest idea that within that cupboard was to be found anything but stolen goods. It had even more effect than he expected, for Mr. Bowes turned as white as a sheet, thinking, not unnaturally, that some of the most treasured secrets of his dwelling had been by some strange chance discovered. Still, however, caution was uppermost, and he sat as mute as a fish.
"However, that's not the question now," said Joshua Brown; "what I want to ask is, what are you up to just now, Mr. Bowes?"
"I don't see what that is to you," said the worthy whom he addressed. "I mind my business, you mind yours."