Chapter 43

Chapter 10

SCOUTS OUT

'And so, Miss Wren,' said Mr Eugene Wrayburn, 'I cannot
persuade you to dress me a doll?'

'No,' replied Miss Wren snappishly; 'if you want one, go and buy
one at the shop.'

'And my charming young goddaughter,' said Mr Wrayburn
plaintively, 'down in Hertfordshire--'

('Humbugshire you mean, I think,' interposed Miss Wren.)

'--is to be put upon the cold footing of the general public, and is to
derive no advantage from my private acquaintance with the Court
Dressmaker?'

'If it's any advantage to your charming godchild--and oh, a
precious godfather she has got!'--replied Miss Wren, pricking at
him in the air with her needle, 'to be informed that the Court
Dressmaker knows your tricks and your manners, you may tell her
so by post, with my compliments.'

Miss Wren was busy at her work by candle-light, and Mr
Wrayburn, half amused and half vexed, and all idle and shiftless,
stood by her bench looking on. Miss Wren's troublesome child
was in the corner in deep disgrace, and exhibiting great
wretchedness in the shivering stage of prostration from drink.

'Ugh, you disgraceful boy!' exclaimed Miss Wren, attracted by the
sound of his chattering teeth, 'I wish they'd all drop down your
throat and play at dice in your stomach! Boh, wicked child! Bee-
baa, black sheep!'

On her accompanying each of these reproaches with a threatening
stamp of the foot, the wretched creature protested with a whine.

'Pay five shillings for you indeed!' Miss Wren proceeded; 'how
many hours do you suppose it costs me to earn five shillings, you
imfamous boy?--Don't cry like that, or I'll throw a doll at you. Pay
five shillings fine for you indeed. Fine in more ways than one, I
think! I'd give the dustman five shillings, to carry you off in the
dust cart.'

'No, no,' pleaded the absurd creature. 'Please!'

'He's enough to break his mother's heart, is this boy,' said Miss
Wren, half appealing to Eugene. 'I wish I had never brought him
up. He'd be sharper than a serpent's tooth, if he wasn't as dull as
ditch water. Look at him. There's a pretty object for a parent's
eyes!'

Assuredly, in his worse than swinish state (for swine at least fatten
on their guzzling, and make themselves good to eat), he was a
pretty object for any eyes.

'A muddling and a swipey old child,' said Miss Wren, rating him
with great severity, 'fit for nothing but to be preserved in the liquor
that destroys him, and put in a great glass bottle as a sight for other
swipey children of his own pattern,--if he has no consideration for
his liver, has he none for his mother?'

'Yes. Deration, oh don't!' cried the subject of these angry