“Mr. Biggleswade to you, Mr. Hobkirk!” instantly responded the lady, with a sudden veering of sympathy. “Ninety years old he is, and I'll thank you to remember it! Now, come along with you, Father, do!”
“What's all this about?” demanded Hemingway, stepping up to the group.
Constable Melkinthorpe so far forgot himself as to wink at his superior, but Hobkirk replied in official accents: “Police Constable Hobkirk, sir, reporting—”
“You shut your gob, young feller!” commanded Mr. Biggleswade. “You ain't got nothing to report. It's me as'll do the reporting. I'm going to 'ave me pitcher in the papers, and a bit wrote about me underneath it.”
“All right, grandfather!” said Hemingway good-naturedly. “But give the constable a chance! What's the matter, Hobkirk?”
“If there was anything the matter, which there ain't,” said the obstreperous Mr. Biggleswade, “it wouldn't do you no good to go asking 'im, because 'e ain't seen beyond that great stomach of 'is for years—not but wot that's far enough. Nor I won't 'ave me words took out of me mouth by 'im, nor you neither, becos the police never 'ad nothing on me, and I ain't afraid of any of you!”
“You're a wicked old man, that's what you are!” exploded the sorely-tried Hobkirk. “Before you got so as you couldn't do more than hobble about with a stick, you was the worst poacher in the county, and well I know it!”
Mr. Biggleswade's villainous countenance creased into a myriad wrinkles, and he gave vent to a senile chuckle. “That's more than you could prove, my lad,” he said. “I don't say I weren't, nor yet I don't say I were, but wot I do say is that I were a sight too smart for all them gurt fools to catch.”
“Don't pay any heed to him, sir!” begged his horrified daughter. “He's getting to be a bit childish! I'm sure I ask your pardon for him coming worriting you like this, but he's that obstinate! And coming up here to talk to you without his teeth!”
A vicious dig from her sire's elbow put her temporarily out of action. “My darter,” explained Mr. Biggleswade. “Lawful,” he added. “Which is wot makes 'er so blooming upperty! I got others. Ah, and sons! First and last—”