“Not so, Jemimar,” said Maryann, with a look of offended dignity, “unwillin’ to speak I am not, though unable I may be—at least I was so until yesterday, but I have come to know a little more about it since Master Will came ’ome while I chanced to be near—”
Maryann hesitated a moment, and Richards, through a mouthful of toast, muttered “the keyhole.”
“Did you speak, sir?” said Maryann, bridling.
“No, oh! no, not by no means,” replied Richards, “only the crust o’ this ’ere toast is rayther ’ard, and I’m apt to growl w’en that’s so.”
“If the crust is ’ard, Mr Richards, your teeth is ’arder, so you ought to scrunch ’em without growling.”
“Brayvo, my dear,” exclaimed Larry, coming to the rescue; “you’re more nor match for him, so be marciful, like a good sowl, an’ let’s hear about this estate, for it seems to me, from what I’ve heard, it must be somewhere in the neighbourhood of Bunco’s native place.”
Maryann, darting a look of mingled defiance and triumph at Richards, who became more than ever devoted to the toast and bacon, proceeded—
“Well, as I was a-sayin’, I ’eard Mrs Osten say to Master Will that his uncle Edward—as was a scape somethin’ or other—had died an’ left a small estate behind the Rocky Mountains in Ameriky or Afriky, I aint sure which.”
“Ameriky, my dear,” observed Larry.
“An’ she said as ’ow they ’ad discovered gold on it, which could be picked up in ’andfuls, an’ it was somewhere near a place called Kally somethin’—”