Professor Braddock says that Bolton'll be back in three days with
the mummy he has been sent to fetch from Malta. You have been
having nightmare! Don't you see how you are frightening Miss
Kendal?"
"'The Witch' of Endor, sir--"
"Deuce take the Witch of Endor and you also. There's a shilling.
Go and drink yourself into a more cheery frame of mind."
Widow Anne bit the shilling with one of her two remaining teeth,
and dropped a curtsey.
"You're a good, kind gentleman," she smirked, cheered at the idea
of unlimited gin. "And when my boy Sid do come home a corpse, I
hope you'll come to the funeral, sir."
"What a raven!" said Lucy, as Widow Anne toddled away in the
direction of the one public-house in Gartley village.
"I don't wonder that the late Mr. Bolton laid her out with a
flat-iron. To slay such a woman would be meritorious."
"I wonder how she came to be the mother of Sidney," said Miss
Kendal reflectively, as they resumed their walk, "he's such a
clever, smart, and handsome young man."
"I think Bolton owes everything to the Professor's teaching and
example, Lucy," replied her lover. "He was an uncouth lad, I
understand, when your step-father took him into the house six
years ago.
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