“Stuff and nonsense!” Mr. Hucks interrupted.  “Who talked about handin’ him back?  Not me.”

“Then you won’t?”

“I’m not sayin’ that, neither.  Fetch the boy along into my Counting House, You and me must have a talk about this—­in fact, I want a word with everybody consarned.”

Tilda considered for a moment, and then announced a compromise.

“Tell you what,” she said, “I don’t mind comin’ along with you first—­ not if you let ’Dolph come too.”

“I shan’t let him murder me, if that’s in your mind.”

Mr. Hucks grinned.

“You can call the others in if he tries,” Tilda answered seriously.  “But he won’t, not if you be’ave.  An’ then,” she went on, “you can arsk me anything you like, an’ I’ll answer as truthful as I can.”

“Can’t I see the boy first?” asked Mr. Hucks, hugely tickled.

“No, you can’t!”

“You’re hard on me,” he sighed.  The child amused him, and this suggestion of hers exactly jumped with his wishes.  “But no tricks, mind.  You others can look after the boy—­I make you responsible for him.  And now this way, missie, if you’ll do me the honour!”

Tilda called to ’Dolph, and the pair followed Mr. Hucks to the Counting House, where, as he turned up the lamp, he told the child to find herself a seat.  She did not obey at once; she was watching the dog.  But ’Dolph, it appeared, bore Mr. Hucks no malice.  He walked around for thirty seconds smelling the furniture, found a rag mat, settled himself down on it, and sat wagging his tail with a motion regular almost as a pendulum’s.  Tilda, observing it, heaved a small sigh, and perched herself on the packing-case, where she confronted Mr. Hucks fair and square across the table.

“Now you just sit there and answer me,” said Mr. Hucks, seating himself and filling a pipe.  “First, who’s in this?”

“Me,” answered Tilda.  “Me and ’im.”

Mr. Hucks laid down his pipe, spread his fingers on the table, and made as if to rise.

“I thought,” said he, “you had more sense in you ’n an ord’nary child.  Seems you have less, if you start foolin’.”

“I can’t ’elp ’ow you take it,” Tilda answered.  “I got to tell you what’s true, an’ chance the rest.  Mr. Sam Bossom, ’e gave us a ’and at the coal-’ole, an’ Mr. Mortimer got mixed up in it later on; an’ that’s all they know about it.  There’s nobody elst, unless you count the pore woman at the orspital, an’ she’s dead.”

“That aunt of yours—­is she dead too?”

Tilda grinned.

“You’ve been talkin’ to Glasson.”

“P’r’aps,” suggested Mr. Hucks, after a shrewd glance at her, “you’d best tell me the story in your own way.”