Mrs. Mortimer thought that if Vitriol Bob were more hideous in outward appearance than Jack Rily, he must be frightful indeed.
“This is the chap we shall have to deal with to-night,” continued the burglar; “and therefore, as you perceive, we must go well prepared to play the game properly. Who his companion is in the robbery, I can’t make out——”
“But I know,” interrupted Mrs. Mortimer, hastily: “he is a poor—weak—emaciated—nervous old man, whom I will undertake to subdue and even bind with cords in a few moments. Oh! he shall find me a very tiger-cat let loose upon him!” she added, her countenance suddenly expressing a hyena-like ferocity.
“Now you do seem handsome—royally handsome—although in reality you are so infernally ugly!” exclaimed Jack Rily. “That is the way in which I like to see a woman look. Why—perdition seize me! but I could almost love you. What a splendid couple we should make!”
And the idea tickled the wretch’s fancy to such an extent, that he laughed until the tears streamed from his yellow eyes, and ran down his dark countenance, while his hare-lip opened so wide that all his upper teeth—large, perfect, white, and even—were displayed to the gums.
“Cease this disgusting mirth, sir,” exclaimed Mrs. Mortimer, unable to restrain her feelings: for—ugly, criminal, and morally degraded as she knew herself to be—the observations of the monster and his consequent hilarity outraged her cruelly.
“Come—come; we must not be bad friends,” said Jack Rily, extending his huge palm towards the old woman, who proffered her hand in return through fear of offending the wretch that had become too useful for her to lose him until the contemplated business should have been accomplished. “There—that’s right,” he added, as he shook her hand with a violence that made her wince: “now there is no ill-feeling between us. But really you must pardon me for what I said, and also forbear from taking offence so easily should I fall into such remarks again. For, look you, madam,—I do not care about female beauty—neither is old age disgusting to me. What I admire in a woman is her disposition—her mind: and when I see you flaring up like a hell-rat—when I behold you waxing infuriate as a beldame—I love you better than if you was the most lovely virgin on the face of the earth. However—enough of that——”
“Enough indeed!” cried Mrs. Mortimer, who experienced the most ineffable repugnance—the most profound loathing for the monster that thus dinned his hideous idiosyncrasies in her ears: but, veiling her abhorrence as much as she could, she said, “And now, perhaps, you will have the goodness to inform me how you intend to proceed in order to recover this large sum of money.”
“The explanation is simple enough,” responded the Doctor. “Vitriol Bob has a particular haunt—a certain lurking-hole, not a hundred miles from here; and I happen to know where the place is. In fact, Bob and I have been pals for a long, long time——”
“I thought you told me just now that you had a spite against him?” interrupted Mrs. Mortimer, fixing her eyes keenly upon the Doctor, as if to read the secrets of his inmost soul and learn whether he were deceiving her.