"You beauties! you've buckled many a good man; wouldn't I like to buckle a copper with you for a change? I'd make him look funny!"
The cab had been dashing along without any diminution of speed. It turned round still another corner. Captain Jim looked out. "Keep your eyes skinned. My place is along here. Bill--that's the cabman, he's a pal of mine--don't want to stop any longer than he can help, for fear of being spotted,--you never know who's looking; so when I give the word jump out like lightning."
"But I want to explain to you--"
"Stow your explanations till we get inside. Then you and me'll have a good old palaver. Now then."
The cab drew up. Somehow, she herself scarcely knew how, Edith found herself standing on the pavement with Captain Jim. Almost before she felt the ground beneath her feet the cab was off.
"Pretty smart that. Bill can move when he wants to, trust him to get the right sort of cattle. Now then, here we are at home." He turned towards the house behind them. She made a further attempt at expostulation--but she was too far gone to do so with effect.
"It's all a mistake, I want to tell you it's all a mistake."
"Tell me all about it when we get inside. You're not up to the mark, I can see. A pick-me-up will put you to rights."
He had been opening the door with a latchkey while he had been speaking. He hustled her through it, in spite of her feeble effort at resistance, leading the way into an apartment which appeared to be used as a sitting-room. The man looked round with an air of pride.
"Not a bad kind of crib, is it? And I have got a bedroom what is better than this,--you trust me to get the proper sort of place. There's some as would give a hundred pounds, and more, to find me in here--but they've got to find someone who'll give them the office. I don't think you will, what do you think? By George, you're a ripper! You look like glass, you do, I'd no idea you were such a beauty. Why, you'd look well in any company, I know what I'm talking about, I do. You mark my words! I'm going in for a clean hundred thousand pounds, and I'm going to touch it too, and you're the very sort I want to come in with me. We'll go shares, fifty thousand pounds a-piece! What do you say to that? You wait a minute, and I'll tell you all about it, I want to say a word to my old landlady."