A voice Micky knew growled from a recess:—"Give the young beggar full measure, Juliar. What he means is, you go by a blooming average."
Miss Hawkins filled up the glass this once, but said:—"You tell your Aunt Treadwell she'll have to keep below the average till Christmas. I never see such a glass!"
Micky was not sorry to find that he could deliver his message direct. He had not hoped to come upon the man himself. He paid for his beer on contract terms, and said confidentially:—"I say, missis, I got a message for him in there."
"Mrs. Treadwell's nephew Michael from next door says he's got a message for you, and you can say if you'll see him. Or not." This was spoken snappishly, as though a coolness were afoot.
The man replied with mock amiability, meant to irritate. "You can send him in here, Juliar. You're open to." But when in compliance with the woman's curt:—"You hear—you can go in," the boy entered the little back-parlour, he turned on him suddenly and fiercely, saying:—"You're the * * * young nark of some damned teck—some * * * copper, by Goard!"
If the boy had flinched before this accusation, which meant that he was a police-spy employed by a detective, he might have repented it. But Micky was no coward, and stood his ground; all the more firmly that he fully grasped the man's precarious position, in the very house where he had been once before captured. He answered resolutely:—"I could snitch upon you this minute, master, if I was to choose. But you aren't no concern of mine, further than I've got a message for you."
"The boy's all safe," said Miss Hawkins briefly, outside. Whereupon the man, after a subsiding growl or two, said:—"You gave the party my message? What had she got to say back again? You may mouth it out and cut your lucky."
Micky gave his message in a plain and business-like manner. "Mrs. Wardle she's back after the accident, and Mrs. Prichard she's in the country, and she don't know where."
"Who don't know where? Mrs. Prichard?"
"Mrs. Wardle. I said you was a-coming to see your mother, onlest the old lady wasn't your mother. Then you shouldn't come."