"This 'ere, mum," holding the articles of equipment for Lady Knob-Kerrick's inspection, "is me summer uniform, but as the nights is a little bit chilly I added a pair o' trousers and a few other things."
Miss Strint tittered, and then, appalled at her own temerity, coughed violently.
Lady Knob-Kerrick turned upon her accustomed victim.
"Strint," she cried, glaring through her lorgnettes, "have you no sense of decency?"
"She's got an awful cough, mum. Yer'd better leave 'er alone," and Bindle grinned in a manner that Lady Knob-Kerrick decided was intolerable.
"I want you to explain, mum, wot you mean by letting Calves and Dicky-Bird keep a special constable from the execution of 'is duty."
Lady Knob-Kerrick looked uncertainly from Bindle to Wilton, then to Miss Strint, and then back again to Bindle.
"You were with the ruffians who have taken my daughter," she said.
"Well, mum, that's where you're sort o' wrong. I've collected white mice and rabbits and once I had a special sort of jumpin' fleas, but I never collected daughters. Besides, there's Mrs. Bindle. She's a bit funny when it comes to another woman. What she'll say when she gets to know that yer've had me 'eld 'ere, a-givin' of me the glad eye through them two 'oles on a stick—I tell yer, mum, I jest daren't think."
"How dare you, you vulgar fellow!" Lady Knob-Kerrick had seen the ghost of a smile flit across Thomas's face. "Hold your tongue!"