“She says they’re a bad lot,” shouted the girl, “and she says they won’t do you no good.”
“Don’t make me come back and pull your ’air for you,” entreated Bobbie.
“Cow—werd!” bawled Miss Trixie Bell.
“Cat!” shouted Mr. Robert Lancaster.
Looking back as be pressed open the black door, he saw the youth called Nose talking to the small girl, and he felt tempted to return and punish both of them, but it occurred to him that a man with a collar could not afford to appear undignified. He went upstairs. The key not being under the mat, he sat astride the rickety banisters and waited. He had found that morning a half emptied box of fusees, and the time did not seem long.
“Don’t tell me the key ain’t under the mat,” said Mrs. Rastin truculently, as she came up the stairs. “You’re too lazy to look for it; that’s about the truth; you little—.”
“Find it yourself, then.”
“Why ’ere it is in the door,” said Mrs. Rastin, “in the door all the time.” She unlocked it. “Ain’t you got no eyes, you good-for-nothing?” Mrs. Rastin stumbled over the mat and went into the dark room. “Light a match when I keep telling you.”
In the room, Bobbie held up one of the flaming fusees. Mrs. Rastin blinked, looked round, and screamed shrilly.
“Murder!” she wailed. “Murder! Police! Fire! Thieves!” She gasped and recovered her breath. “Every penny gone of the money that was to keep the young—.”