"What does he want of old Mrs. Prichard now?"
"A screw. Sov'rings, if he can get 'em. Otherwise bobs, if he can't do no better."
"Mrs. Prichard has no money."
"He says she has and he giv' it her. And he's going to have it out of her, he says."
"Did he say that to you?"
"Not he! But he said it to Miss Horkings. Under his nose, like." No doubt this expression, Michael's own, was a derivative of "under the rose." It owed something to sotto voce, and something to the way the finger is sometimes laid on the nose to denote acumen.
"Look you here, Micky! You're a good boy, ain't you?"
"Middlin'. Accordin'." An uncertain sound. It conveyed a doubt of the desirability of goodness.
"You don't bear no ill-will neither to me, nor yet to old Mrs. Prichard?"
"Bones alive, no!" This also may have been coined at home. "That was the idear, don't you twig, missis? I never did 'old with windictiveness, among friends."