“I assure you, granny, that you would be much better cared for and fed there than you can be here, and it would not be necessary to give up your room. I would look after it until you are better.”
Still the old lady shook her head, which was shaking badly enough from age as it was.
Going to the corner cupboard, in which Mrs Willis kept her little store of food and physic, I stood there pondering what I should do.
“Please, sir,” said Slidder, sidling up to me, “if you wants mutton-chops, or steaks, or port wine, or anythink o’ that sort, just say the word and I’ll get ’em.”
“You, boy—how?”
“Vy, ain’t the shops full of ’em? I’d go an help myself, spite of all the bobbies that valks in blue.”
“Oh, Slidder,” said I, really grieved, for I saw by his earnest face that he meant it, “would you go and steal after all I have said to you about that sin?”
“Vell, sir, I wouldn’t prig for myself—indeed I wouldn’t—but I’d do it to make the old ’ooman better.”
“That would not change stealing into a virtue. No, my boy, we must try to hit on some other way of providing for her wants.”
“The Lord will provide,” said Mrs Willis, from the bed.