"Ye shouldn't sing out _Poy_lot, little lass," said he, when she turned up at the end of that day--the day of the two young men and the sixpence. "Ye should say Pie-lott. Else ye might be anyone else's little lass, not Father Jim's."
"I _ain't_," said Lizarann resolutely. "I'm Father Jim's. Pi-lot!" She threw her soul into a reproduction of her father's articulation.
"Nor yet you've no need to lose your front teeth over it. Easy does it in the end. Now again! Pi-lot!" Whereupon Lizarann repeated the word with self-restraint, and received approval. "Not for to tear up the paving-stones, lassie," added her father, explanatorily.
"What was that young varmint a-saying?" he asked, as they started to return home. He was referring to words overheard--winged words that had passed between his daughter and a boy. It was the same boy that had called him Pretty Poll, who had followed him to the street-corner; and had then gone on to greet Lizarann with the report that her Daddy was waiting to give her "what-for," for being late--which she wasn't.
Probably he was the worst boy in existence--at least, Lizarann thought he was. She was too young to appreciate his only virtue, a total absence of hypocrisy.
"Saying as it was _your_ eyes as was out, and it didn't hurt _him_." Jim seemed mightily amused.
"What did you say to him over that, little lass?" said he.
"Didn't say nuffint!" And, indeed, Lizarann had not seen her way to quarrelling with two such obvious truths.
"What else was he a-saying? He said a bit more than that. I could hear him giving it mouth."
"Sayin' he'd four nuts he hadn't ate, and me to guess which 'and they was in beyont his back for a 'apenny." Lizarann then explained the proposed deal at some length.
"He's a nice young sportin' charackter! Thimble-rigging isn't in it. Why, lassie, if you _had_ guessed right, he'd just have swopped 'em across, and took your ha'penny. He wants attendin' to with a rope's end, he does--wants his trousers spilin'. His mother she sells the fried eels and winkles, next door against the little shop where I"--Jim hesitated a minute--"where I get my shaving-soap." For Jim remembered in time that his connection with this shop was not to come to his child's ears. His board was to be kept in the background.