A little finesse was necessary to land the elixir vitæ on the parlour chimney-piece, and Dolly on the hearthrug. Then Uncle Mo sat down in his own chair to recover breath, saying in the course of a moment:—"And what did the man say to Dave, and what did he say to young Sparrowgrass?" He did not suppose that "the man" was a person capable of identification; he was an unknown unit, but good to talk about.
"He saided Mrs. Picture." Dolly placed the subject she proposed to treat broadly before her audience, with a view to its careful analysis at leisure.
"What on 'arth did he say Mrs. Picture for? He don't know Mrs. Picture." The present tense used here acknowledged the man's authenticity, and encouraged the little maid—three and three-quarters, you know!—to further testimony. It came fairly fluently, considering the witness's recent acquisition of the English language.
"He doos know Mrs. Picture, ass he doos, and he saided Mrs. Picture to Micky, ass he did." This was plenty for a time, and during that time the witness could go on nodding with her eyes wide open, to present the subject lapsing, for she had found out already how slippery grown-up people are in argument. Great force was added by her curls, which lent themselves to flapping backwards and forwards as she nodded.
It was impossible to resist such evidence, outwardly at least, and Uncle Mo appeared to accept it. "Then the man said Mrs. Picture to Dave," said he. "And Dave told it on to you, was that it?" He added, for the general good of morality:—"You're a nice lot of young Pickles!"
But this stopped the nodding, which changed suddenly to a negative shake, of great decision. "The man never saided nuffint to Dave, no he didn't."
"Thought you said he did. You're a good 'un for a witness-box! Come up and sit on your old uncle. The man said Mrs. Picture to young Sparrowgrass—was that it?" Dolly nodded violently. "And young Sparrowgrass he passed it on to Dave?" But it appeared not, and Dolly had to wrestle with an explanation. It was too much involved for letterpress, but Uncle Mo thought he could gather that Dave had been treated as a mere bystander, supposed to be absorbed in angling, during a conversation between Michael Ragstroar and the Man. "Dave he came home and told you what the Man said to Micky—was that it?" So Uncle Mo surmised aloud, not at all clear that Dolly would understand him. But, as it turned out, he was right, and Dolly was glad to be able to attest his version of the facts. She resumed the nodding, but slower, as though so much emphasis had ceased to be necessary. "Micky toldited Dave," she said. She then became immensely amused at a way of looking at the event suggested by her uncle. The Man had told Micky; Micky had told Dave; Dave had told Dolly; and Dolly had told Uncle Mo, who now intensified the interest of the event by saying he should tell Aunt M'riar. Dolly became vividly anxious for this climax, and felt that this was life indeed, when Uncle Mo called out to Aunt M'riar:—"Come along here, M'riar, and see what sort of head and tail you can make of this here little Dolly!" Whereupon Aunt M'riar came in front out at the back, and listened to a repetition of Dolly's tale while she dried her arms, which had been in a wash-tub.
"Well, Mo," she said, when Dolly had repeated it, more or less chaotically, "if you ask me, what I say is—you make our Dave speak out and tell you, when he's back from school, and say you won't have no nonsense. For the child is that secretive it's all one's time is worth to be even with him.... What's the Doctor's stuff for you've been spending your money on at Ekingses?"
"Only a stimulatin' mixture for to give tone to the system. Dr. Ekings says it'll do it a world o' good. Never known it fail, he hasn't."
"Have you been having any more alarming symptoms, Mo, and never told me?"