Charles Dickens: Our Mutual Friend

BOOK THE SECOND: BIRDS OF A FEATHER Chapter 12: More Birds of Prey (continued)

'Meaning Gaffer, Captain?'

'Of whom else are we speaking?' returned the other, with a movement of his foot, as if Rogue Riderhood were beginning to sneak before him in the body as well as the spirit, and he spurned him off. 'I have heard of a daughter, and a son. I ask for information; I ask YOUR daughter; I prefer to speak to her. What children did Hexam leave?'

Pleasant, looking to her father for permission to reply, that honest man exclaimed with great bitterness:

'Why the devil don't you answer the Captain? You can Poll Parrot enough when you ain't wanted to Poll Parrot, you perwerse jade!'

Thus encouraged, Pleasant explained that there were only Lizzie, the daughter in question, and the youth. Both very respectable, she added.

'It is dreadful that any stigma should attach to them,' said the visitor, whom the consideration rendered so uneasy that he rose, and paced to and fro, muttering, 'Dreadful! Unforeseen? How could it be foreseen!' Then he stopped, and asked aloud: 'Where do they live?'

Pleasant further explained that only the daughter had resided with the father at the time of his accidental death, and that she had immediately afterwards quitted the neighbourhood.

'I know that,' said the man, 'for I have been to the place they dwelt in, at the time of the inquest. Could you quietly find out for me where she lives now?'

Pleasant had no doubt she could do that. Within what time, did she think? Within a day. The visitor said that was well, and he would return for the information, relying on its being obtained. To this dialogue Riderhood had attended in silence, and he now obsequiously bespake the Captain.