The girl seemed to get the drift of the question, and with a pitiful little smile pointed earthward, and made a sweeping gesture with both her hands, as if to indicate the passing of death’s wings.
“Dead?—both dead, eh?” muttered Mr. Quincunx. “And these rascals who’ve got hold of you are villains and rogues? Damned rogues! Damned villains!”
He paused and muttered to himself. “What the devil’s the Italian for a god-forsaken rascal?—‘Cattivo!’ ‘Tutto cattivo!’—the whole lot of them a set of confounded scamps!”
The child nodded her head vigorously.
“You see,” he cried, turning to Old Flick, “she disowns you all. This is clearly a most knavish piece of work! What were you doing to the child? eh? eh? eh?” Mr. Quincunx accompanied these final syllables with renewed flourishes of his stick in the air.
Old Flick retreated still further away, his legs shaking under him. “Here,—you can clear out of this! Do you understand? You can clear out of this; and go back to your damned master, and tell him I’m going to send the police after him!
“As for this girl, I’m going to take her home with me. So off you go,—you old reprobate; and thankful you may be that I haven’t broken every bone in your body! I’ve a great mind to do it now. Upon my soul I’ve a great mind to do it!
“Shall I beat him into a jelly for you,—my darling? Shall I make him skip and dance for you?”
The child seemed to understand his gestures, if not his words; for she clung passionately to his hands, and pressing them to her lips, covered them with kisses; shaking her head at the same time, as much as to say, “Old Flick is nothing. Let Old Flick go to the devil, as long as I can stay with you!” In some such manner as this, at any rate, Mr. Quincunx interpreted her words.
“Sheer off, then, you old scoundrel! Shog off back to your confounded circus! And when you’ve got there, tell your friends,—Job Love and his gang,—that if they want this little one they’d better come and fetch her!