Volume Two—Chapter Thirteen.
Janet a Listener.
Janet went to her lonely room, sad and sinking of heart, to kneel upon a box by the window, gazing out above the house-tops, as if her wishes were far away in the country from which she had so lately returned.
An hour passed like this, and then from below there came the sound of voices in altercation, followed almost directly after by the noise of a struggle. Then, as she stood trembling, there were the panting, hard breathing, and half-stifled ejaculations of those who seemed to be engaged, and then utter silence.
Janet crept back to her box, for the sound of quarrel and fight was no uncommon one in Brownjohn Street, and again she knelt there thinking—thinking always, with her glittering eyes hot and aching. But now came the sounds again, and, startled and nervous, she ran to her door, which she opened, and then stood out upon the landing, for the voices seemed to come from down-stairs, at the street-door, and one of these she recognised as that of D. Wragg, the other belonging to the heavy young man who had of late taken so much interest in the contents of the dealer’s shop.
“Now, look here, Jack Screwby,” Janet heard D. Wragg exclaim; “don’t you make no mistake; trade’s trade, but I ain’t cut my wisdom-teeth for nothing. So look here; if you come to my shop again, and speak to them gals as you did, and hang about here as you’ve hung, and talk about it like you’ve talked, I’ll—well, there; just you look out and you’ll see.”
“Wot’s he allus a hangin’ about for, then,” growled the other voice; “you wouldn’t talk like this sort to him—no I ain’t! I ain’t drunk—so now then! P’raps I’m as good a man as he’s, and got a bit o’ money to go into the fancy with any time I like; and arter the good turns I’ve done you, if you were anything of a man, you’d say, Come and be pardners. I’ve done you no end of good, D. Wragg; and now, as I wants to be good friends, you’re all wrong with a chap as is p’raps ekalls with them as does in dawgs.”
“You air drunk, that’s what you air!” exclaimed D. Wragg, indignantly, “or else you’d never come talking like that there! Pardner, indeed!” he continued, contemptuously; “there, get out!”
Then once more there came the sound of scuffling, evidently caused by D. Wragg supplementing his order with the efforts of his hands, Mr Screwby opposing with all the resistance he could bring to bear.