Now the boy Michael, all eyes and ears, had somehow come to an imperfect knowledge that Mrs. Prichard had been in Australia once on a time. The imperfection of this knowledge had affected the name of the place, and when he officiously struck in to supply it, he did so inaccurately. "Horstrian she is!" He added:—"Rode in a circus, she did." But this was only the reaction of misinterpretation on a too inventive brain.
"Then she ain't any use to me. Austrian, is she?" Thus the stranger; who then, after a slow glare up and down the Court, in search of further widows perhaps, turned to go, saying merely:—"I'll wish you a good-morning, guv'nor. Good-morning!" Uncle Mo watched him as he lurched up the Court, noting the oddity of his walk. This man, you see, had been chained to another like himself, and his bias went to one side like a horse that has gone in harness. This gait is known in the class he belonged to as the "darby-roll," from the name by which fetters are often spoken of.
"How long has that charackter been makin' the Court stink, young Carrots?" said Uncle Moses to Michael.
"Afore you come up, Mr. Moses."
"Afore I come up. How long afore I come up?"
Michael appeared to pass through a paroxysm of acute calculation, ending in a lucid calm with particulars. "Seven minute and a half," said he resolutely. "Wanted my name, he did!"
"What did you tell him?"
"I told 'im a name. Orl correct it was. Only it warn't mine. I was too fly for him."
"What name did you tell him?"
"Mr. Eking's at the doctor's shop. He'll find that all right. He can read it over the door. He's got eyes in his head." No doubt sticklers for conscience will quarrel with the view that the demands of Truth can be satisfied by an authentic name applied to the wrong person.