“What, sir! and would you lift a hand to a woman?”
The man showed his yellow teeth, much as a dog might have done.
“Old sir,” he warned, “meddle not where you have no acquaintance. As for the woman, I’d never laid a hand on her had she not been so stubborn.”
“He’d eat your supper, sir, that’s what he’d do,” sobbed the landlady. “The hungry wretch cares for no one.”
“Right there, mistress,” jeered the man. “I do not, indeed. And to show that I do not, here’s for the saucepans, for I can withstand the temptations of their smell no longer.”
With that he strode, with mouth agrin, toward the fireplace; the old man waved his stick feebly but was thrust aside with no gentle hand; and then the fellow came face to face with Ben Cooper.
Pale-faced landladies, slim young girls and tottering old men seemed of the sort that had no power to stop him; and now he leered at the round-faced stripling with the fresh cheeks of a schoolboy.
“Ah, you are there, are you, my lad?” said he, with enjoyment plain in his voice.
Ben looked at him quietly and nodded.
“Yes,” said he; “here I am, and here I have been for some time. Indeed,” thoughtfully, “I think I came during the first discussion with regard to the rights of the earlier patron.”