Jabez ran down to interpose, and the infuriated woman turned on him, then ran in her rage to fetch her mistress to witness the damage done, and the footprints of the depredator, and to own that punishment was just.
But as Mrs. Ashton ascended the warehouse stairs that afternoon, she heard Jabez and Kit loud in altercation, and before they were aware she possessed a clue to much that had gone before.
Something Jabez had said was answered by a loud guffaw from Kit, and the words—
“Let them laugh that win. I call it a deuced good joke.”
“And I call it cowardly and dishonourable to let the poor beast suffer for your greediness,” Jabez answered, indignantly.
“Now don’t you put in your oar, young yellow-skirt. I’ll let no charity-boy hector over me,” blustered Kit.
Jabez put down a bundle of umbrella whalebones he had on his shoulder, to confront the other, then counting ferules into dozens. Umbrellas used to have brass ferules, like elongated thimbles, on the sticks.
“Look you, Kit, I’ve borne many a scurvy trick of yours without saying a word, but I will not even give the sanction of silence to dishonesty, and will not see a noble animal ill-used to screen a coward.”
“Won’t you?” sneered Kit, “then we’ll see whose word weighs heaviest.”
Mrs. Ashton came into the room.