"I mean I'm a-going to tell you all, as you seem as if you'd like to know it."
"Do! Oh, do!"
"Then of course Johanna being but a very young piece of goods, and not knowing much o' the ways o' this here world, and the habits and manners o' the wild beasteses as is in it, when she found as the old house wasn't good enough for her mother, she naturally enough thought it wasn't good enough for her, you know."
"Oh, this is the most dreadful stroke of all!"
"I should say it were," said Ben, quite solemnly. "Take it easy though, and you'll get through it in the course of time. Well then, when Johanna found as everything at home was sixes and sevens, she borrowed a pair of what do call 'ems of some boy, and a jacket, and off she went."
"She what?"
"She put on a pair of thingumys—well, breeches then, if you must have it—and away she went, and the last I saw of her was in Fleet Street with 'em on."
"Gracious Heaven!"
"Very likely, but that don't alter the facts of the case, you know, Mrs. O. On she had 'em, and all I can say is that you might have knocked me down flat to see her, that you might. I didn't think I should ever have got home to the beasteses in the Tower again, it gave me such a turn."
"Lost! Lost!"