answer as truthful as I can."

"Can't I see the boy first?" asked Mr. Hucks, hugely tickled.

"No, you can't!"

"You're hard on me," he sighed. The child amused him, and this
suggestion of hers exactly jumped with his wishes. "But no tricks,
mind. You others can look after the boy--I make you responsible for
him. And now this way, missie, if you'll do me the honour!"

Tilda called to 'Dolph, and the pair followed Mr. Hucks to the Counting
House, where, as he turned up the lamp, he told the child to find
herself a seat. She did not obey at once; she was watching the dog.
But 'Dolph, it appeared, bore Mr. Hucks no malice. He walked around for
thirty seconds smelling the furniture, found a rag mat, settled himself
down on it, and sat wagging his tail with a motion regular almost as a
pendulum's. Tilda, observing it, heaved a small sigh, and perched
herself on the packing-case, where she confronted Mr. Hucks fair and
square across the table.

"Now you just sit there and answer me," said Mr. Hucks, seating himself
and filling a pipe. "First, who's _in_ this?"

"Me," answered Tilda. "Me and 'im."

Mr. Hucks laid down his pipe, spread his fingers on the table, and made
as if to rise.

"I thought," said he, "you had more sense in you 'n an ord'nary child.
Seems you have less, if you start foolin'."

"I can't 'elp 'ow you take it," Tilda answered. "I got to tell you
what's true, an' chance the rest. Mr. Sam Bossom, 'e gave us a 'and at
the coal-'ole, an' Mr. Mortimer got mixed up in it later on; an' that's
all _they_ know about it. There's nobody elst, unless you count the
pore woman at the orspital, an' _she's_ dead."

"That aunt of yours--is _she_ dead too?"

Tilda grinned.

"You've been talkin' to Glasson."

"P'r'aps," suggested Mr. Hucks, after a shrewd glance at her, "you'd
best tell me the story in your own way."

"That's what I'd like. You see," she began, "I been laid up three
weeks in 'orspital--the Good Samaritan, if you know it--along o' bein'
kicked by a pony. End o' last week they brought in a woman--dyin' she
was, an' in a dreadful state, an' talkin'. I ought to know, 'cos they
put her next bed to mine; s'pose they thought she'd be company. All o'
one night she never stopped talkin', callin' out for somebody she called
Arthur. 'Seemed as she couldn' die easy until she'd seen 'im. Next
day--that's yesterday--her mind was clearer, an' I arsked her who
Arthur was an' where he lived,