“Five weeks yesterday; and that amount could have been earned by an industrious boy in, say, four days, and by a labouring man in two. I’m afraid, Tom, that dishonesty does not pay.”
David, who was close by, helping to load the remainder of the old iron into a cart, edged up to Tom as soon as Uncle Richard had gone into the mill.
“Strikes me, Master Tom,” he said, “as I could put my hand on him as stole that there old iron.”
“Who do you think it was, David?”
“Not going to name no names, sir,” said David, screwing up his lips, and tightening a roll of blue serge apron about his waist. “Don’t do to slander your neighbours; but if you was to say it was old Mother Warboys’ hulking grandson, I wouldn’t be so rude as to contradick you; not as I say it is, mind you, but I’ve knowed that chap ever since he was a dirty little gipsy whelp of a thing, and I never yet knowed him take anything as was out of his reach.”
Tom laughed.
“But I just give him fair warning, Master Tom, that if he comes after my ribstons and Maria Louisas this year—”
“Did he come last year?” said Tom eagerly.
“Never you mind that, Master Tom. I don’t say as he did, and I don’t say as he didn’t; but I will say this, and swear to it: them Maria Louisas on the wall has got eyes in their heads, and stalks as does for tails, but I never see one yet as had legs.”
“Nor I neither, David,” said Tom, laughing.