Page:Dombey and Son.djvu/621

518 "He don’t care for me! He don’t care for me, as I care for him!" cried Mrs. Brown, lifting up her skinny hands. "But I ’ll take care of his bird."

"Take good care of it too, you know, Mrs. Brown," said Rob, shaking his head. "If you was so much as to stroke its feathers once the wrong way, I believe it would be found out."

"Ah, so sharp as that, Rob?" said Mrs. Brown, quickly.

"Sharp, Misses Brown!" repeated Rob. "But this is not to be talked about."

Checking himself abruptly, and not without a fearful glance across the room, Rob filled the glass again, and having slowly emptied it, shook his head, and began to draw his fingers across and across the wires of the parrot’s cage by way of a diversion from the dangerous theme that had just been broached.

The old woman eyed him slily, and hitching her chair nearer his, and looking in at the parrot, who came down from the gilded dome at her call, said:

"Out of place now, Robby?"

"Never you mind, Misses Brown," returned the Grinder, shortly.

"Board wages, perhaps, Rob?" said Mrs. Brown.

"Pretty Polly!" said the Grinder.

The old woman darted a glance at him that might have warned him to consider his ears in danger, but it was his turn to look in at the parrot now, and however expressive his imagination may have made her angry scowl, it was unseen by his bodily eyes.

"I wonder Master didn’t take you with him, Rob," said the old woman, in a wheedling voice, but with increased malignity of aspect.

Rob was so absorbed in contemplation of the parrot, and in trolling his forefinger on the wires, that he made no answer.

The old woman had her clutch within a hair’s breadth of his shock of hair as it stooped over the table; but she restrained her fingers, and said, in a voice that choked with its efforts to be coaxing:

"Robby, my child."

"Well, Misses Brown," returned the Grinder.

"I say I wonder Master didn’t take you with him, dear."

"Never you mind, Misses Brown," returned the Grinder.

Mrs. Brown instantly directed the clutch of her right hand at his hair, and the clutch of her left hand at his throat, and held on to the object of her fond affection with such extraordinary fury, that his face began to blacken in a moment.

"Misses Brown!" exclaimed the Grinder, "let go, will you? What are you doing of? Help, young woman! Misses Brow—Brow—!"

The young woman, however, equally unmoved by his direct appeal to her, and by his inarticulate utterance, remained quite neutral, until, after struggling with his assailant into a corner, Rob disengaged himself, and stood there panting and fenced in by his own elbows, while the old woman, panting too, and stamping with rage and eagerness, appeared to be collecting her energies for another swoop upon him. At this crisis Alice interposed her voice, but not in the Grinder’s favour, by saying,

"Well done, mother. Tear him to pieces!"