"Ha!" he snarled, and looked at the children as if he would like to pick a quarrel with them.
"Does your aunt allow you to let the fire out on nights like this—hey? You're a charming young lady, you—and this young gentleman, in manners and appearance, everything the proudest aunt could desire; but I'm curious to know whether either one or the other is of the slightest earthly use; and secondly, whether she keeps a birch-rod in that closet—hey?—and now and then flogs you—ha, ha, ha! The expense of the rod is trifling, the pain not worth mentioning, and soon over, but the moral effects are admirable, better and more durable—take my word for it—than all the catechisms in Paternoster Row."
The old gentleman seemed much tickled by his own pleasantries, and laughed viciously as he eyed the children.
"You did not tell me a fib, I hope, my dear, about your aunt? She's a long time about coming; and, I say, do put a little coal on the fire, will you?"
"Coal's locked up, please sir," said the child, who was growing more afraid of him every minute.
"'Gad, it seems to me that worthy woman's afraid you'll carry off the bricks and plaster. Where's the poker? Chained to the wall, I suppose. Well, there's a complaint called kleptomania—it comes with a sort of irritation at the tips of the fingers, and I should not be surprised if you and your friend Jemmie, there, had got it."
Jemmie looked at his fingers' ends, and up in the gentleman's face, in anxious amazement.
"But there's a cure for it—essence of cane—and if that won't do, a capital charm—nine tails of a gray cat, applied under competent direction. Your aunt seems to understand that disorder—it begins with an itching in the fingers, and ends with a pain in the back—ha, ha, ha! You're a pair of theologians, and, if you've read John Bunyan, no doubt understand and enjoy an allegory."
"Yes, sir, please, we will," answered poor Lucy Maria, in her perplexity.
"And we'll be very good friends, Miss Maria Louise, or whatever your name is, I've no doubt, provided you play me no tricks and do precisely whatever I bid you; and, upon my soul, if you don't, Til take the devil out of my pocket and frighten you out of your wits, I will—ha, ha, ha!—so sure as you live, into fits!"