y black ringlets that flowed over his coat-collar, when
Doctor Joyce entered the cloak-room.

"You wished to speak with me?" said the rector, not sitting down
himself, and not asking Mr. Jubber to sit down.

"Oh! you're Doctor Joyce?" said the fellow, assuming his most insolent
familiarity of manner directly.

"That is my name," said Dr. Joyce very quietly. "Will you have the
goodness to state your business with me immediately, and in the fewest
possible words?"

"Hullo! You take that tone with me, do you?" said Jubber, setting his
arms akimbo, and tapping his foot fiercely on the floor; "you're trying
to come Tommy Grand over me already, are you? Very good! I'm the man
to give you change in your own coin--so here goes! What do you mean by
enticing away my Mysterious Foundling? What do you mean by this private
swindle of talent that belongs to my circus?"

"You had better proceed a little," said the rector, more quietly than
before. "Thus far I understand nothing whatever, except that you wish to
behave offensively to me; which, in a person of your appearance, is, I
assure you, of not the slightest consequence. You had much better save
time by stating what you have to say in plain words."

"You want plain words--eh?" cried Jubber, losing his temper. "Then, by
God, you shall have them, and plain enough!"

"Stop a minute," said Doctor Joyce. "If you use oaths in my presence
again, I shall ring for my servant, and order him to show you out of the
house."

"You will?"

"I will, most certainly."

There was a moment's pause, and the blackguard and the gentleman looked
one another straight in the face. It was the old, invariable struggle,
between the quiet firmness of good breeding, and the savage obstinacy
of bad; and it ended in the old, invariable way. The blackguard flinched
first.

"If your servant lays a finger on me, I'll thrash him within an inch
of his life," said Jubber, looking towards the door, and scowling as he
looked. "But that's not the point, just now--the point is, that I charge
you with getting my deaf and dumb girl into your house, to perform
before you on the sly. If you're too virtuous to come to my circus--and
better than you have been there--you ought to have paid the proper
price for a private performance. What do you mean by treating a public
servant, like me, with your infernal aristocratic looks, as if I was
dirt under your feet, after such shabby doings as you've been guilty
of--eh?"