"Mrs. Prichard has no money."

"He says she has and he giv' it her. And he's going to have it out of
her, he says."

"Did he say that to you?"

"Not he! But he said it to Miss Horkings. Under his nose, like." No
doubt this expression, Michael's own, was a derivative of "under the
rose." It owed something to _sotto voce_, and something to the way the
finger is sometimes laid on the nose to denote acumen.

"Look you here, Micky! You're a good boy, ain't you?"

"Middlin'. Accordin'." An uncertain sound. It conveyed a doubt of the
desirability of goodness.

"You don't bear no ill-will neither to me, nor yet to old Mrs.
Prichard?"

"Bones alive, no!" This also may have been coined at home. "That was the
idear, don't you twig, missis? I never did 'old with windictiveness,
among friends."

"Then you do like I tell you. When are you going next to your aunt at
Hammersmith?"

Micky considered a minute, as if the number of his booked engagements
made thought necessary, and then said decisively: "To-morrow mornin', to
oblige."

"Very well, then! You go and find out this gentleman...."

"He ain't a gentleman. He's a varmint."

"You find him out, and say old Mrs. Prichard she's gone in the country,
and you can't say where. No more you can't, and I ain't going to tell
you. So just you say that!"

"I'm your man, missis. On'y I shan't see him, like as not. He don't stop
in one place. The orficers are after him--the police."

Then Aunt M'riar showed her weak and womanish character. Let her excuse
be the memory of those six rapturous weeks, twenty-five years ago, when
she was a bride, and all her life was rosy till she found herself
deserted--left to deal as she best might with Time and her loneliness.
You see, this man actually _was_ her husband. Micky could not understand
why her voice should change as she said:--"The police are after
him--yes! But you be a good boy, and leave the catching of him to them.
'Tain't any concern of yours. Don't you say nothing to them, and they
won't say nothing to you!"

The boy paused a moment, as though in doubt; then said with
insight:--"I'll send 'em the wrong way." He thought explanation due,
adding:--"I'm fly to the game, missis." Aunt M'riar had wished not to be
transparent, but she was not good at this sort of thing. True, she had
kept her counsel all those years, and no one had seen through her, but
that was mere opacity in silence.

She left Micky's apprehension to fructif