But then the potman cried upon them: “Don’ be damn fools. Wod yer talkin’ about. ’Ow can ’e shut ’er up wiv a monkey—eh? Yer plurry pie-cans! ’Ow can ’e? We ain’t got no monkey ’ere!”
“Liar!” cried everybody, as a matter of principle.
“I ain’t a liar. Go an’ see fer yehselves. We ain’t got no monkey ’ere. Ain’t ’ad one ’ere for nearly a year. Old Kang Foo sold his to Bostock. Don’ make such damn fools o’ yesselves. Nothin’ ain’t been done to the gel. Old ’Unk’s on’y punished ’er cos she’s too chippy. She’s ’is daughter. Got a right to, ain’t ’e? If she’d bin mine I’d ’ave give ’er a good spankin’. ’E’s on’y sent ’er up to the room to frighten ’er. It’s empty—abs’lutely empty.”
“Then what’s the screamin’ and rowin’ that’s bin going on all the time? Eh? Listen!”
Low noises came from above. “Cos she’s frightened—’at’s why. There’s nothin’ there.”
“Yerss, that’s it,” said the aggrieved Hunk, still wedged against the wall by the crowd. “Yeh makin’ yesselves dam fools. Specially this dam little snipe, son of a copper’s nark. Go up and see fer yesselves since yeh so pushin’. Go on—up yeh go. She’s all right—quiet enough now, cos she’s found out there’s nothing there. I on’y sent ’er there to get a fright. There warn’t no blasted monkey there.”
“Well, we know the kind o’ swine you are, Hunk. Don’t stand arguin’ there. Get on up!”
“I ain’t a-arguin’ wiv yer. I’m a-telling of yeh. We ain’t got no monkey. Not fer a year. So now. Go on up and see fer yesselves, yeh dirty lot of poke-noses. She ain’t ’urt; on’y scared. Half-a-hour in a dark room’ll learn ’er to be’ave, and it wouldn’t do some of you no ’arm. Go on! Get up my clean stairs and knock everything to pieces, yeh pack of flat-faced pleading chameleons!” He stopped and spluttered and shook himself with impotent anger. Any one of the crowd he could have put on the floor with one hand, but he recognised that a gang was a gang, and he accepted the situation. He flung a hand to the stair. “Go on—up yeh go—the ’ole pleadin’ lot of yeh!”
So up they went.