"I didn't say it was me as knew," answered Ethelbert a little plaintively. "But don't you think, sir, that when the clothes are brushed and all, him as brushes finds out what's in the pockets—yes" (mysteriously) "even in them of the 'ighest?"
"'Oo'd be fool enough to leave such a thing in their pocket?" said Mr. Whaley contemptuously. "And 'oo do you mean by the 'ighest?"
Ethelbert nodded with a superior air.
"Ah!" he answered doggedly, "all I said was, 'there's some could speak if they chose.' And there's things that may be left in the pockets even of the 'ighest."
"Look 'ere, young Bert," said Mr. Whaley, rising again ponderously, and with a new threat in his face: "I'm not going to have any of that." Then shaking a considerable sausage of a forefinger at the lad, he added, "When you say 'the 'ighest' that's enough! Don't let me 'ear you speak again: leastways not on jewels and such like. There's only one name that it can mean you're driving at"—and there rose up within his mind the majesty of the master, Humphrey de Bohun.
"I'm driving at no one," said the Boy, struck suddenly again with terror. He had not dreamed that the upper servants felt so strongly upon the immunity of lords such as he in whose pocket the gem, to Ethelbert's certain knowledge, reposed—for he had put it there.
"You've been a-brushing the clothes, young lad, have yer? Yes, of course you have; that's your place; and setting 'em out as they should be set. And you say you found something in the pocket of the 'ighest, did you?"
"I never ..." began Ethelbert, almost on the point of howling.
"You shut your dangerous young mouth," shouted Mr. Whaley. "It's talking like that against your betters as 'as put many and many a lad in prison."
"Oh, sir!" said the unfortunate Bert.