"The Signor's too sharp; he'll soon
see he couldn't get such a pretty pair once in twenty years. He's a man
I shudder at; once he wanted me to join his show, but, bad and cruel as
Mick is, I'd rather have to do with him. But hush, Tim, there they are!
I hear Mick's voice swearing--they're coming this way. Run you off and
hide yourself, but try to creep up to the van where the children are
when they're gone, and I'll tell you what has to be done."
Tim disappeared with marvellous quickness. Diana rose to her feet and
went forward a little, with a light in her hand, to meet her brother. He
was accompanied, as she expected, by the Signor, and she saw in a moment
that Mick was more than half drunk, and in a humour which might become
dangerous at any moment.
"He's made him drunk," she said to herself, "thinking he'll drive a
better bargain. He'd better have let him alone."
The Signor was a very small, dark, fat man--dressed, as he considered,
"quite like a gentleman." He had bright, beady, twinkling eyes, and a
way of smiling and grinning as if he did not think nature had made him
enough like a monkey already, in which I do not think any one would have
agreed with him!
"So here's your handsome sister, my friend Mick," he said, as he caught
sight of Diana--"handsomer than ever.
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