“I understand, my lady,” said the bald-headed man, “that you prefers a charge against the accused of theft from the person at Barter’s Emporium?”
“I have nothing whatever to do with the charges,” said the woman tenaciously. “I ask only for my purse. I can’t live without it. If it is not restored to me immediately it will be most displeasing to Lord Pomeroy.”
“On’y a matter o’ form, my lady,” said the bald-headed man blandly. “Bring the book, Harby. This way, Pearson. Take a cheer, your ladyship.”
With considerable stateliness the woman sank on to a chair of purple velvet.
The bald-headed man re-seated himself at the table and opened the book. He turned to the boy with an almost ferocious sternness, which made him shudder in spite of his bewilderment.
“Now then, my lad,” he said, “what’s your name?”
“I—I—I d-don’t think I know, sir,” stammered the boy, after this question had been repeated twice.
“Oh, don’t you?” said the bald-headed man, his ferocity yielding to a sudden pleasantness that seemed even more remarkable. “You don’t think you knows? Bring the register, Harby. He don’t think he knows!”
The boy’s confession of ignorance had conferred upon the bald-headed man a sweetness of manner of which few would have suspected him to be capable.
“Look up ‘C,’ Harby, vollum six,” said the bald-headed man, rubbing his hands with much satisfaction, and then adjusting a pair of pince-nez which hung by a gold cord from his neck. “Open wound on the face.”