“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.