'But you surely are not afraid of your father,' I whispered in reply.
'No, no,' said she, bringing her lips so close to my face that I felt the breath steaming round my ear. 'Not daddy—Videy!—Daddy can't keep a secret for five minutes. It's her I'm afeared on.'
I had scarcely left the door two yards behind me when I heard the voices of the sisters in loud altercation. I heard Sinfi exclaim, 'I sha'n't tell you what I said to him, so now! It was somethin' atween him an' me.'
'There they are ag'in,' said Panuel, bending his head sagely round and pointing with his thumb over his shoulder to the door; 'at it ag'in! Them two chavies o' mine are allus a-quarrellin' now, an' it's allus about the same thing. 'Tain't the quarrellin' as I mind so much,—women an' sparrows, they say, must cherrup an' quarrel,—but they needn't allus keep a-nag-naggin' about the same thing.'
'What's their subject, Panuel?' I asked.
'Subjick? Why you, in course. That's what the subjick is. When women quarrels you may allus be sure there's a chap somewheres about.'
By this time we had entered his bedroom: he went and sat upon the bed, and without looking round him began unlacing his 'highlows.' I had often on previous occasions remarked that Panuel, who, when sober, was as silent as Videy, and looked like her in the face, became, the moment that he passed into 'market-merriness,' as frank and communicative as Sinfi, and (what was more inexplicable) looked as much like Sinfi as he had previously looked like Videy.
'How can I be the subject of their quarrels?' I said, listlessly enough, for I scarcely at first followed his words.
'How? Ain't you a chap?'
'Undoubtedly, Panuel, I am a chap.'