“Hullo! You take that tone with me, do you?” said Jubber, setting his arms akimbo, and tapping his foot fiercely on the floor; “you’re trying to come Tommy Grand over me already, are you? Very good! I’m the man to give you change in your own coin--so here goes! What do you mean by enticing away my Mysterious Foundling? What do you mean by this private swindle of talent that belongs to my circus?” “You had better proceed a little,” said the rector, more quietly than before. “Thus far I understand nothing whatever, except that you wish to behave offensively to me; which, in a person of your appearance, is, I assure you, of not the slightest consequence. You had much better save time by stating what you have to say in plain words.” “You want plain words--eh?” cried Jubber, losing his temper. “Then, by God, you shall have them, and plain enough!” “Stop a minute,” said Doctor Joyce. “If you use oaths in my presence again, I shall ring for my servant, and order him to show you out of the house.” “You will?” “I will, most certainly.” There was a moment’s pause, and the blackguard and the gentleman looked one another straight in the face. It was the old, invariable struggle, between the quiet firmness of good breeding, and the savage obstinacy of bad; and it ended in the old, invariable way. The blackguard flinched first. “If your servant lays a finger on me, I’ll thrash him within an inch of his life,” said Jubber, looking towards the door, and scowling as he looked. “But that’s not the point, just now--the point is, that I charge you with getting my deaf and dumb girl into your house, to perform before you on the sly. If you’re too virtuous to come to my circus--and better than you have been there--you ought to have paid the proper price for a private performance. What do you mean by treating a public servant, like me, with your infernal aristocratic looks, as if I was dirt under your feet, after such shabby doings as you’ve been guilty of--eh?” “May I ask how you know that the child you refer to has been at my house to-day?” asked Doctor Joyce, without taking the slightest notice of Mr. Jubber’s indignation. “One of my people saw that swindling hypocrite of a Peckover taking her in, and told me of it when I missed them at dinner. There! that’s good evidence, I rather think! Deny it if you can.” “I have not the slightest intention of denying it. The child is now in my house.” “And has gone through all her performances, of course? Ah! shabby! shabby! I should be ashamed of myself, if _I’d_ tried to do a man out of his rights like that.” “I am most unaffectedly rejoiced to hear that you are capable, under any circumstances, of being ashamed of yourself at all,” rejoined the rector. “The child, however, has gone through no performances here, not having been sent for with any such purpose as you suppose. But, as you said just now, that’s not the point. Pray, why did you speak of the little girl, a moment ago, as _your_ child?”