‘What do you mean by that?’ inquired a voice.
‘Why, isn’t his brother—what’s his name? Bill—Jack—’
‘’Arry,’ corrected Daniel.
‘To be sure, ‘Arry; I don’t know him myself, but I ‘eard talk of him. It’s him as is doin’ his three months’ ‘ard labour.’
‘That ain’t no fault o’ Dick Mutimer’s,’ asserted the apologist. ‘He always was a bad ‘un, that ‘Arry. Why, you can say so much, Dan? No, no, I don’t ‘old with a man’s bein’ cried down cause he’s got a brother as disgraces himself. It was Dick as got him his place, an’ a good place it was. It wasn’t Dick as put him up to thievin’, I suppose?’
‘No, no, that’s right enough,’ said Dabbs. ‘Let a man be judged by his own sayin’s and doin’s. There’s queer stories about Dick Mutimer himself, but—was it Scotch or Irish, Mike?’
Mike had planted his glass on the counter in a manner suggesting replenishment.
‘Now that’s what I call a cruel question!’ cried Mike humorously. ‘The man as doesn’t stick to his country, I don’t think much of him.’
The humour was not remarkable, but it caused a roar of laughter to go up.
‘Now what I want to know,’ exclaimed one, returning to the main subject, ‘is where Mutimer gets his money to live on. He does no work, we know that much.’