“What is that to me?”

“T’otherest Governor,” returned the man in a tone of injured innocence, “if you don’t care to hear no more, don’t hear no more. You begun it. You said, and likeways showed pretty plain, as you warn’t by no means friendly to him. But I don’t seek to force my company nor yet my opinions on no man. I am a honest man, that’s what I am. Put me in the dock anywhere⁠—I don’t care where⁠—and I says, ‘My Lord, I am a honest man.’ Put me in the witness-box anywhere⁠—I don’t care where⁠—and I says the same to his lordship, and I kisses the book. I don’t kiss my coat-cuff; I kisses the book.”

It was not so much in deference to these strong testimonials to character, as in his restless casting about for any way or help towards the discovery on which he was concentrated, that Bradley Headstone replied: “You needn’t take offence. I didn’t mean to stop you. You were too⁠—loud in the open street; that was all.”