“He don’t know that she has so much as gone out,” Mrs. Gilson answered with the utmost coolness. “And what’s more, I’m not going to tell him. He came in looking not fit to cross a room, my man, let alone cross a horse! And when I went to take him a dish of tea I found him asleep in his chair. And you may take it from me, if he’s not left to have out his sleep, now it’s come, he’ll be no more use to you, six hours from this, than a corpse!”
“Still, ma’am,” Bishop objected, “the Captain won’t be best pleased——”
“Please a flatiron!” Mrs. Gilson retorted. “Best served’s best pleased, my lad, and that you’ll learn some day.” And then suddenly taking the offensive, “For the matter of that, what do you want with him?” she continued. “Ain’t you grown men? If Joe Nadin and you and half a dozen redbreasts can’t find one silly girl in an open countryside, don’t talk to me of your gangs! And your felonies! And the fine things you do in London!”
“But in London——”
“Ay, London Bridge was made for fools to go under!” Mrs. Gilson answered, with meaning. “It don’t stand for nothing.”
Bishop tapped his top-boot gloomily.
“She may come in any minute,” he said. “There’s that.”
“She may, or she mayn’t,” Mrs. Gilson answered, with another look at the clock.
“She’s not been gone more than an hour and a half.”
“Nor the mouse my cat caught this afternoon,” the landlady retorted. “But you’ll not find it easily, my lad, nor know it when you find it.”