"Why," he said, "there's a fortune in that little gal; I must have the little gal. I don't think nothing at all of the boy. She was quite the most sperited little 'un I ever come across. Fact is, I would not lose her for a fifty-pund note."
For two days Uncle Ben stormed, and the performances at the circus went languidly; but when, on the third morning, he saw the posters about the town, and when one happened to be pasted up exactly opposite his own circus, he began to cool down and to change his mind.
"Where are you, Sarah?" he called out.
His wife flew to answer the fierce summons of her lord and master.
"I'm here, Ben," she answered.
"'I'm here, Ben,'" he retorted, mimicking her tone. "There you are, Sarah, without the sperit of a mouse. Have you seen, or have you not, what's up all over the town?"
"Yes, to be sure," replied Sarah Holt; "and it's a faithful description of the children. Why, they are as like what that description says of 'em as two peas, Ben."
"I'm not saying they aint," snapped Ben, in a very indignant voice; "but what I do want to know is this—what's to be done if they are found and we are discovered to have bought 'em? We had all our plans arranged, and we have taken this field for a fortnight; but, bad as the loss will be to ourselves, it'll be better than the perlice discovering that we had anything to do with them children. The fact is this, Sarah: I'm going to pack our traps and be off out of this, to-night at the latest."
"Perhaps you are right, Ben," said the woman, in a very sad tone; "only," she added, with a sigh, "if we are really going, may not I run up to Delaney Manor and just give 'em a hint? It seems so dreadful to me if anything should happen to them little kids, more particular to little Diana, who was the mortal image of my Rachel who died."
"If you do anything of the kind I'll kill you," roared the man. "Do you want to see me locked up in prison for kidnaping children? No; we must be out of this to-night, and I must lose the ten pund I paid for the use of the field."