‘Yes,’ added the second, ‘and it was a “locket and gold ring.” We found out that, and saw it given you. We were by. Oh! we were by.’
‘And we know more than that,’ resumed the first, ‘for she told us often, long ago, that the young mother had told her that, feeling she should never get over it, she was on her way, at the time that she was taken ill, to die near the grave of the father of the child.’
‘Would you like to see the pawnbroker himself?’ asked Mr. Grimwig with a motion towards the door.
‘No,’ replied the woman; ‘if he—she pointed to Monks—‘has been coward enough to confess, as I see he has, and you have sounded all these hags till you have found the right ones, I have nothing more to say. I did sell them, and they’re where you’ll never get them. What then?’
‘Nothing,’ replied Mr. Brownlow, ‘except that it remains for us to take care that neither of you is employed in a situation of trust again. You may leave the room.’
‘I hope,’ said Mr. Bumble, looking about him with great ruefulness, as Mr. Grimwig disappeared with the two old women: ‘I hope that this unfortunate little circumstance will not deprive me of my porochial office?’
‘Indeed it will,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘You may make up your mind to that, and think yourself well off besides.’
‘It was all Mrs. Bumble. She would do it,’ urged Mr. Bumble; first looking round to ascertain that his partner had left the room.
‘That is no excuse,’ replied Mr. Brownlow. ‘You were present on the occasion of the destruction of these trinkets, and indeed are the more guilty of the two, in the eye of the law; for the law supposes that your wife acts under your direction.’
‘If the law supposes that,’ said Mr. Bumble, squeezing his hat emphatically in both hands, ‘the law is a ass—a idiot. If that’s the eye of the law, the law is a bachelor; and the worst I wish the law is, that his eye may be opened by experience—by experience.’