“Aye, aye,” said Mr. Freely, smiling, with every capability of murder in his mind, except the courage to commit it. He wished the Bath buns might by chance have arsenic in them.
“Mother’s zinnies?” said Jacob, pointing to a glass jar of yellow lozenges that stood in the window. “Zive ’em me.”
David dared not do otherwise than reach down the glass jar and give Jacob a handful. He received them in his smock-frock, which he held out for more.
“They’ll keep him quiet a bit, at any rate,” thought David, and emptied the jar. Jacob grinned and mowed with delight.
“You’re very good to this stranger, Mr. Freely,” said Letitia; and then spitefully, as David joined the party at the parlour-door, “I think you could hardly treat him better, if he was really your brother.”
“I’ve always thought it a duty to be good to idiots,” said Mr. Freely, striving after the most moral view of the subject. “We might have been idiots ourselves—everybody might have been born idiots, instead of having their right senses.”
“I don’t know where there’d ha’ been victual for us all then,” observed Mrs. Palfrey, regarding the matter in a housewifely light.
“But let us sit down again and finish our tea,” said Mr. Freely. “Let us leave the poor creature to himself.”
They walked into the parlour again; but Jacob, not apparently appreciating the kindness of leaving him to himself, immediately followed his brother, and seated himself, pitchfork grounded, at the table.
“Well,” said Miss Letitia, rising, “I don’t know whether you mean to stay, mother; but I shall go home.”