"Gentleman!" cried Nick. "He will be flogged presently, then you will see what a cur he is."
"Flogged! Surely no."
"But he will be, and I wish that I were allowed to use the whip. Why, he belongs to the scum of the earth."
By this time I felt my degradation as I had never felt it before, for I felt that I would give worlds, did I possess them, to tell her the whole truth. I wondered who she was, and I writhed at the thought of Nick poisoning her mind against me.
Seeing them there others came up, and I heard one ask who this beauteous maiden was.
"Don't you know?" was the reply. "She is Mistress Naomi Penryn."
"What is his name?" asked this maiden, presently.
"Can't you see?" replied Nick. "Ah! the eggs have almost blotted out the name. It is Jasper Pennington, street brawler and vagabond."
And this was the way I first met Naomi Penryn.