“Yes, it’s a fact, she had twa young ones, and didn’t sim to car’ a bit when I drowned them baith in our pond.”
The Policeman no sooner heard the confession of what he believed to be a case of infanticide, than he exclaimed “Did I understand you, sir, that you—you yourself drowned the poor little things?”
“Yes,” continued the innocent Sandboys, “I thowt she wuddent be yable to ’tend to them, you ken; so, for her seek, I ’termined on putting them out of t’ way as whietly as I cud.”
The Detective here assumed a solemn tone, and proceeded to caution Mr. Sandboys after the custom of his craft, telling him that he was not called upon to criminate himself, and that whatever he might say on the painful subject would be used in evidence against him on a future occasion.
It was now Mr. Sandboys’ turn to stare with the same astonishment at the Detective, as the “man of peace” had a few moments before looked at him.
“What dost tha mean, man, by t’ painful subject, and yens words being yused in yevidence against yen?” he hastily inquired.
The Policeman made no more ado, but straightway drew his staff from his hinder pocket, and told Cursty that he arrested him and the whole family in the Queen’s name; and, to give additional weight to the announcement, he added, that he was a Detective Officer, in connexion with her Majesty’s Metropolitan Police.
The words were no sooner out of “the Authority’s” mouth than Mr. Sandboys, vividly remembering his railway adventure with a pseudo member of the same respectable body, seized the kitchen poker, which happened to be in the fire at that moment, and, without a word, proceeded, with it in his hand, to chase the startled Official round the kitchen table; but finding it impossible to get within arm’s length of the Policeman while that article of furniture stood between them, Cursty stopped, after a few turns, and placed himself before the doorway, with the red-hot weapon still in his hand, and vowed that the Detective should not leave the house until he had given him in charge. Mr. Sandboys told him he had been taken in by that detective trick once before; and though he and his family might be fresh up from the country, and the Londoners might think they could impose upon them as they pleased, still he’d let them see he was a match for them, this time, “for aw that.”
The self-possessed policeman, finding himself imprisoned, stepped back a few paces; and, drawing his rattle from his coat-pocket, proceeded to spring it with all his force in the middle of the kitchen, amid the shrieks of Mrs. and Miss Sandboys.
In a minute down came the lodgers “of all nations,” in ready answer to the summons; and scarcely had the “whir-r” finished, before the kitchen was filled with the “drawing-rooms,” “the second, and third floors,” and “the garrets” from every quarter of the globe; and among the number was Mr. Quinine, who was heard to declare that the sudden alarm had thrown Mrs. Quinine back—it was impossible for him to say to what extent.