Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/146

 much ceremony as you would waste upon your maid.”

At that she looked up from her reading for the first time, and laughed at me. “My poor Ryder,” she says, “you ha’ been my husband for a day, and I am not used to keep ’em longer. Thank God that I didn’t divorce ye sooner.”

“Go, sir!” pleaded Miss, at my ears; and she was right enough, for there was the traps at the door, as I could hear.

“Yes, go, my highwayman,” says t’other, indifferently.

“Well,” says I grimly, “an’ I be a highwayman, the which I will not deny, damme, I will not go empty-handed. One or t’other,” says I, looking at ’em, “make your choice, or I’ll have both.”

Her ladyship laughed, and Miss turned red. “O, you may have sis,” says her ladyship. “Only leave me my jewels.”

This nettled me further. “Damn your jewels,” I says, “I’ll have someone forth along of me, sink me if I don’t.”

’Twas then that the door opened, and I