"Never been better in my life, M'riar. But I thought it was getting on for time I should have a bottle o' stuff, one sort or other. Don't do to go too long without a dose, nowadays." Whereupon Aunt M'riar looked incredulous, and read the label, and smelt the bottle, and put it back on the mantelshelf. And Uncle Mo asked for the wineglass broke off short, out of the cupboard; because it was always best to be beforehand, whether you had anything the matter or not.
Whatever Aunt M'riar said, Dave was not secretive. Probably she meant communicative, and was referring to the fact that Dave, whenever he was called on for information, though always prompt to oblige, invariably made reply to his questioner in an undertone, in recognition of a mutual confidence, and exclusion from it of the Universe. He had a soul above the vulgarities of publication. Aunt M'riar merely used a word that sounded well, irrespective of its meaning—a common literary practice.
Therefore Dave, when applied to by Uncle Mo for particulars of what "the Man" said, made a statement of which only portions reached the general public. This was the usual public after supper; for Mr. Alibone's companionship in an evening pipe was an almost invariable incident at that hour.
"What's the child a-sayin' of, Mo?" said Aunt M'riar.
"Easy a bit, old Urry Scurry!" said Uncle Mo, drawing on his imagination for an epithet. "Let me do a bit of listening.... What was it the party said again, Davy—just precisely?..." Dave was even less audible than before in his response to this, and Uncle Mo evidently softened it for repetition:—"Said if Micky told him any—etceterer—lies he'd rip his heart out? Was that it, Dave?"
"Yorce," said Dave, aloud and emphatically. "This time!" Which seemed to imply that the speaker had refrained from doing so, to his credit, on some previous occasion. Dave laid great stress on this point.
Aunt M'riar seemed rather panic struck at the nature of this revelation. "Well now, Mo," said she, "I do wonder at you, letting the child tell such words! And before Mr. Alibone, too!"
Mr. Jerry's expression twinkled, as though he protested against being credited with a Pharisaical purity, susceptible to shocks. Uncle Mo said, with less than usual of his easy-going manner:—"I'm a going, M'riar, to get to the bottom of this here start. So you keep outside o' the ropes!" and then after a little by-play with Dave and Dolly, which made the hair of both rougher than ever, he said suddenly to Dave:—"Well, and wasn't you frightened?"
"Micky wasn't frightened," said Dave, discreetly evasive. He objected to pursuing the subject, and raised a new issue. The sketch that followed of the interview between Micky and the Man was a good deal blurred by constant India-rubber, but its original could be inferred from it—probably as follows, any omissions to conciliate public censorship being indicated by stars. Micky speaks first:
"Who'll you rip up? You lay 'ands upon me, that's all! You do, and I'll blind your eyesight, s'elp me! Why, I'd summing a Police Orficer, and have you took to the Station, just as soon as look at you...." It may be imagined here that Michael's voice rose to a half-shriek, following some movement of the Man towards him. "I would, by Goard! You try it on, that's all!"