“On the contrary, godmother; my idea is as large now as a pumpkin—and you know what a pumpkin is, don’t you? So you gave notice that you were going? Does that come next?” asked Miss Jenny with a look of close attention.
“I indited a letter to my master. Yes. To that effect.”
“And what said Tingling-Tossing-Aching-Screaming-Scratching-Smarter?” asked Miss Wren with an unspeakable enjoyment in the utterance of those honourable titles and in the recollection of the pepper.
“He held me to certain months of servitude, which were his lawful term of notice. They expire tomorrow. Upon their expiration—not before—I had meant to set myself right with my Cinderella.”
“My idea is getting so immense now,” cried Miss Wren, clasping her temples, “that my head won’t hold it! Listen, godmother; I am going to expound. Little Eyes (that’s Screaming-Scratching-Smarter) owes you a heavy grudge for going. Little Eyes casts about how best to pay you off. Little Eyes thinks of Lizzie. Little Eyes says to himself, ‘I’ll find out where he has placed that girl, and I’ll betray his secret because it’s dear to him.’ Perhaps Little Eyes thinks, ‘I’ll make love to her myself too;’ but that I can’t swear—all the rest I can. So, Little Eyes comes to me, and I go to Little Eyes. That’s the way of it. And now the murder’s all out, I’m sorry,” added the dolls’ dressmaker, rigid from head to foot with energy as she shook her little fist before her eyes, “that I didn’t give him cayenne pepper and chopped pickled capsicum!”
This expression of regret being but partially intelligible to Mr. Riah, the old man reverted to the injuries Fledgeby had received, and hinted at the necessity of his at once going to tend that beaten cur.
“Godmother, godmother, godmother!” cried Miss Wren irritably, “I really lose all patience with you. One would think you believed in the Good Samaritan. How can you be so inconsistent?”