Page:Marriott Watson--Galloping Dick.djvu/287

 I put up my head haughtily. “Sink me, do you insinuate ’twas I?” I cried.

“You have been long in taking my meaning,” he returned sardonically.

Here was the point for the diversion I had contrived, and so says I, suddenly changing my tone to sullenness, “You cannot prove it.”

“I think,” he says with a laugh, “my word will serve with the justices against a common scampsman.”

“You will not prosecute?” I asked in a cringing note, and Old Rowley pricked up his ears.

“Troth, and I will even now have you charged and clapped in Newgate,” says he angrily.

“What you may do, you may do,” says I very surly, “but I can prove an alibi”

“That,” he says with a sneer, “you shall have the opportunity of doing in the dock.”

“I can bring a witness to support it beyond dispute,” I says.

“Indeed,” he replied ironic, “and who may that be?”