owing, as I believe, to my being a honest man as gets my living by the sweat of my brow. Which he ain’t, and he don’t.”
“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.”
“T’otherest Governor,” replied Mr. Riderhood, mollified and mysterious, “I know wot it is to be loud, and I know wot it is to be soft. Nat’rally I do. It would be a wonder if I did not, being by the Chris’en name of Roger, which took it arter my own father, which took it from his own father, though which of our fam’ly fust took it nat’ral I will not in any ways mislead you by undertakin’ to say. And wishing that your elth may be better than your looks, which your inside must be bad indeed if it’s on the footing of your out.”
Startled by the implication that his face revealed too much of his mind, Bradley made an effort to clear his brow. It might be worth knowing what this strange man’s business was with Lightwood, or Wrayburn, or both, at such an unseasonable hour. He set himself to find out, for the man might prove to be a messenger between those two.