“Oh! him! ” said Riderhood, who had craftily worked the schoolmaster into this corner, that he might again take note of his face under its evil possession. “I’d know him among a thousand.”
“Did you—” Bradley tried to ask it quietly; but, do what he might with his voice, he could not subdue his face;—“did you ever see them together?”
(The Rogue had got the clue in both hands now.)
“I see ’em together, t’otherest Governor, on the very day when Gaffer was towed ashore.”
Bradley could have hidden a reserved piece of information from the sharp eyes of a whole inquisitive class, but he could not veil from the eyes of the ignorant Riderhood the withheld question next in his breast. “You shall put it plain if you want it answered,” thought the Rogue, doggedly; “I ain’t a-going a wolunteering.”
“Well! was he insolent to her too?” asked Bradley after a struggle. “Or did he make a show of being kind to her?”
“He made a show of being most uncommon kind to her,” said Riderhood. “By George! now I—”
His flying off at a tangent was indisputably natural. Bradley looked at him for the reason.
“Now I think of it,” said Mr. Riderhood, evasively, for he was substituting those words for “Now I see you so jealous,” which was the phrase really in his mind; “P’r’aps he went and took me down wrong, a purpose, on account o’ being sweet upon her!”
The baseness of confirming him in this suspicion or pretence of one (for he could not have really entertained it), was a line’s breadth beyond