“Your properties!” said I; “I am in the King’s Lane. Why did you put them there, if you did not wish them to be seen?”
“On the spy,” said the woman, “hey? I’ll drown him in the sludge in the toad-pond over the hedge.”
“So we will,” said the man, “drown him anon in the mud!”
“Drown me, will you?” said I; “I should like to see you! What’s all this about? Was it because I saw you with your hands full of straw plait, and my mother there—”
“Yes,” said the woman; “what was I about?”
Myself. How should I know? Making bad money, perhaps!
And it will be as well here to observe, that at this time there was much bad money in circulation in the neighbourhood, generally supposed to be fabricated by the prisoners, so that this false coin and straw plait formed the standard subjects of conversation at Norman Cross.
“I’ll strangle thee,” said the beldame, dashing at me. “Bad money, is it?”
“Leave him to me, wifelkin,” said the man, interposing; “you shall now see how I’ll baste him down the lane.”
Myself. I tell you what, my chap, you had better put down that thing of yours; my father lies concealed within my tepid breast, and if to me you offer any harm or wrong, I’ll call him forth to help me with his forked tongue.