“She’s not bound to obey you,” said Jemima; “she’s your mother.”
“She is. And a nice respectable mother, too, to go mixing with a lot of low, swindling jail-birds! It’s sickening!”
“You’ve no right to talk like that, Sam,” said Jemima, flushing up; “they’re as honest as you are—more so, perhaps. There!”
“Go it; say on,” said Samuel. “All I can tell you is, if you don’t both of you turn the Cruden lot up, I’ll go and live in lodgings by myself.”
“Why should we turn them or anybody up for you, I should like to know?” said Jemima, with a toss of her head. “What have they done to you?”
“You’re an idiot,” said Sam, “or you wouldn’t talk bosh. Your dear Reginald—”
“Well, what about him?” said Jemima, her trembling lip betraying the inward flutter with which she heard the name.
“How would you like to know your precious Reginald was this moment in prison?”
“What!” shrieked Jemima, with a clutch at her brother’s arm.
He was glad to see there was some one he could make “sit up,” and replied, with brutal directness,—