“Oh dear! what's this? He don't bite, do 'e? Good Sambo!”
Miranda sought her master's eye at once. 'You see what happens to her if a lady loiters in the streets,' she seemed to say.
“It must be hard standing about here all day, after the life you've led,” said Hilary.
“I mustn't complain; it's been the salvation o' me.”
“Do you get shelter?”
Again the old butler seemed to take him into confidence.
“Sometimes of a wet night they lets me stand up in the archway there; they know I'm respectable. 'T wouldn't never do for that man”—he nodded at his rival—“or any of them boys to get standin' there, obstructin' of the traffic.”
“I wanted to ask you, Mr. Creed, is there anything to be done for Mrs. Hughs?”
The frail old body quivered with the vindictive force of his answer.
“Accordin' to what she says, if I'm a-to believe 'er, I'd have him up before the magistrate, sure as my name's Creed, an' get a separation, an' I wouldn't never live with 'im again: that's what she ought to do. An' if he come to go for her after that, I'd have 'im in prison, if 'e killed me first! I've no patience with a low class o' man like that! He insulted of me this morning.”