first instinct, immediately followed out, was to spring to my feet in an attitude of readiness; my second, acted on in the same movement, to plant myself in front of Pepita. And at that, Uncle Joseph Krevin, for reasons best known to himself, held up a fat, disapproving hand.
“I’m surprised at you, Nephew Benjamin, acting as if there was any likelihood of harm coming to a young lady while I’m present!” he said, in his most sanctimonious manner. “And sorry I am that the pretty miss should be put to any inconvenience, such as this here unfortunate state o’ things! But all that comes through you, Benjamin, a-poking of your nose into matters as doesn’t concern you!”
I was boiling with rage, all the fiercer because I had a shrewd idea that it was utterly ineffectual, and I maintained my ground, keeping Pepita in her chair behind me. And I dared to be as impudent as I could.
“That’s all rot!” I retorted. “And you look here!—both of you! If you don’t let us walk out of this house, and at once, you’ll both find yourselves in a hole! You’re liable to prosecution now, and”
But Uncle Joseph once more held up the fat hand.
“I wouldn’t excite myself, if I were you, Benjamin,” he interrupted. “Excitement’s bad for anybody, and I can’t allow it to myself, consequent upon my weak heart. And there’s no occasion for it, neither. All that me and Mr. Getch wants is a little private conversation, and it rests with you, Benjamin, to make it of a friendly natur’. Me and Mr. Getch don’t want to have no words with you, I’m sure—we’re kindly-natured men, I think, and disposed to treat them fair as treats us fair. And I should suggest, Benjamin, that you resume your seat, and prove yourself amenable to what we’ll call the present circumstances.”
“The present circumstances are that you’ve locked up Miss Marigold and myself against our wills and are liable to severe punishment for it!” said I. “And you’ll get it! Do you think we’ve no friends, and that they won’t track us? We shall have been looked for ever since noon, and”
Again a wave of the fat hand and the unctuous voice—Uncle Joseph was evidently cock-sure about the safety of his own situation. “I wouldn’t worrit myself about them things if I was you, Benjamin,” he said. “You’re as safe here—and the young lady—as we are from interruption. It’ll be a long time before any notion gets abroad that you’re where you are or anybody comes seeking you at the Shooting Star—and if they did, they’d go away no wiser than when they came! You wasn’t seen to come here by anybody, Nephew Benjamin, and ’cepting me and Mr. Getch and the lady what brought you your dinners, there’s nobody knows you are here. And I should advise you to make the best of the sittywation and be friendly. Friendly!—that’s all we want.”
“Are you going to let us out?” I demanded.
Uncle Joseph made no very immediate reply. Instead, he took a chair—the best and biggest chair in the room—and plumping himself into it settled his big figure comfortably, and, placing his hands on his pudgy knees, looked at us in turn. As for the landlord, he leaned against the door, his hands in his pockets, watching. It seemed a long time before Uncle Joseph spoke.
“That’s one o’ them questions as is difficult to answer, Benjamin,” he said at last, after chewing the proposition well over. “You’d ought to know as one intended for the law that these is questions to which it’s uncommon difficult to give a plain affirmytive or an ekally plain neggytive to. I can conceive the difficulty myself, for if I happened to be put in a witness-box”
“You’ll find yourself in something else than a witness-box, if you go on!” I broke in, rudely, and of set purpose. “There’s another spot—the dock! That’s more likely to be your destination—on the way to something still more impossible to escape from!”
I felt a tug at my coat, and Pepita spoke gently.
“Don’t, Ben!” she murmured. “There’s no need”
“Thank you, missie!” said Uncle Joseph. “There is no need, as you kindly say, and glad I am to find that Benjamin has somebody at his elbow to admonish him. It doesn’t become young men to show violence to their elders, especially when those elders is rellytives—brothers o’ their own mother, too!”
“Who’s showing violence!” I exclaimed. “If anybody’s had any violence shown to them, it’s us! You”
“Oh, no, Nephew Benjamin, I think not!” remonstrated Uncle Joseph. “No, Benjamin, I really couldn’t allow that suggestion in Mr. Getch’s presence. Mr. Getch, I’m sure, wouldn’t harm a canary bird, let alone a young lady and gentleman”
“Never laid a finger on ’em!” muttered Getch. “Not me!”