"If you are a very good boy, I may bring you again—but I warn you that her husband is jealous; are you afraid for your skin, Griff?"
"Not I; I would not forego that model if there were fifty husbands, each with a hundred jealousies. When will you bring me again?"
"Just like your father, just! You must take life at a gallop. We will see; perhaps at the end of the week."
When Joe Strangeways went to the kitchen sink that night for his evening wash, Hannah, the maid of all work, took care to be at hand. Hannah had lost no whit of her spite against her mistress, and she saw that something was to be made out of that morning's visit.
"It's a doiting bird 'at leaves its nest for another," she observed, polishing a knife on a leather board.
"If tha's getten owt to say, speak up, lass, an' doan't go dithering an' mumbling to thyseln."
"Mrs. Lummax war playing th' grand lady here again the morn."
"Oh, she war, war she? A limb o' th' devil, I call her, and a limb o' th' devil I say she is, choose who hears me. Hast 'a nowt else to say?"
"She warn't by herseln. That long-legged son of hers came along wi' her. Seems like as if he fancies hisseln, thinks hisseln fearful fine, wi' his Lunnon slithery spache; he'd mak a likely pair o' tongs, yon, I'm thinking."
"Lang i' th' leg an' short i' th' heäd, as t' saying is," chuckled Joe. "What wod my fine gentleman be after, think ye?"