“Hould your nise,” said Patsy, “and be listenin’ to me; I’ve got a job for you.”
“Is it a saft job?” blubbered Micky, who with a grain more brass and a grain more ballast in his composition would have shone perhaps as a Labour Member or a Labour Leader.
“Saft as a feather-bed,” replied Patsy.
Then the two began to converse together in a low tone.
Now Patsy’s hatred of Mr Boxall had roots far beyond the present, roots from the time when some men played on harps and other men painted themselves with woad.
The spirit of Puck that dwelt in the breast of Patsy had been brooding on the form of Micky Mooney all the time that Moriarty had been telling of the cluricaune. Micky’s statement about the lady in white had given the tricky spirit an idea.
Patsy did not require Mr Fanshawe’s word to know that Mr Boxall was “gone” on Miss Lestrange, and this knowledge was part parent of the idea.
“And what will you be givin’ me if I be afther doin’ as you tells me?” queried Micky, plucking at the moss in the cracks of the wall.
“I’ll give you the first silver sixpence with a hole in it I finds on a Tuesday.”
“Which Cheusday?” asked Micky cautiously, with a side look at his employer.