"You tell me no lies and you'll see. There's an old widow-lady down this Court. Don't you go and say there ain't!"
"There's any number. Which old widder?"
"Name of Daverill. Old enough to be your father's granny."
"No sich a name! There's one a sight older than that though—last house down the Court—top bell."
"How old do you make her out?"
"Two 'underd next birthday!" But Michael perceived in his questioner's eye a possible withdrawal of his offer of a consideration, and amended his statement:—"Ninety-nine, p'raps!—couldn't say to arf a minute."
"House at the end where the old cock in a blue shirt's smoking a pipe—is that it?"
"Ah!—up two flights of stairs. But she can't see you, nor yet hear you, to speak of."
"Who's the old cock?"
"This little boy's uncle. He b'longs to the Fancy. 'Eavyweight he was, wunst upon a time." And Dave Wardle, who had joined the colloquy, gave confirmatory evidence: "He's moy Uncle Moses, he is. And he's moy sister Dolly's Uncle Moses, he is. And moy sister Dolly she had a piece of koyk with a beadle in it. She had. A dead beadle!" But this evidence was ruled out of court by general consent; or rather, perhaps, it should be said that the witness remained in the box giving evidence of the same nature for his own satisfaction, while the court's attention wandered.