"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?"
"Because she's one of my performers, of course. But, come! I've had enough of this; I can't stop talking here all day; I want the child--so just deliver her up at once, will you?--and turn out Peck as soon as you like after. I'll cure them both of ever doing this sort of thing again! I'll make them stick tight to the circus for the future! I'll show them--"
"You would be employing your time much more usefully," said Doctor Joyce, "if you occupied it in altering the bills of your performance, so as to inform the public that the deaf and dumb child will not appear before them again."
"Not appear again?--not appear to-night in my circus? Why, hang me! if I don't think you're trying to be funny all of a sudden! Alter my bills--eh? Not bad! Upon my soul, not at all bad for a parson! Give us another joke, sir; I'm all attention." And Mr. Jubber put his hand to his ear, grinning in a perfect fury of sarcasm.
"I am quite in earnest," said the rector. "A friend of mine has adopted the child, and will take her home with him tomorrow morning. Mrs. Peckover (the only person who has any right to exercise control over her) has consented to this arrangement. If your business here was to take the child back to your circus, it is right to inform you that she will not leave my house till she goes to London to-morrow with my friend."
"And you think I'm the sort of man to stand this?--and give up the child?--and alter the bills?--and lose money?--and be as mild as mother's milk all the time? Oh! yes, of course! I'm so devilish fond of you and your friend! You're such nice men, you can make me do anything! Damn all this jabber and nonsense!" roared the ruffian, passing suddenly from insolence to fury, and striking his fist on the table. "Give me the child at once, do you hear? Give her up, I say. I won't leave the house till I've got her!"
Just as Mr. Jubber swore for the second time, Doctor Joyce rang the bell. "I told you what I should do, if you used oaths in my presence again," said the rector.
"And I told you I'd kill the servant, if he laid a finger on me," said Jubber, knocking his hat firmly on his head, and tucking up his cuffs.
Vance appeared at the door, much less pompous than usual and displaying an interesting paleness of complexion. Jubber spat into the palm of each of his hands, and clenched his fists.
"Have you done dinner down stairs?" asked Doctor Joyce, reddening a little, but still very quiet.
"Yes, sir," answered Vance, in a remarkably conciliating voice.
"Tell James to go to the constable, and say I want him; and let the gardener wait with you outside there in the hall."
"Now," said the rector, shutting the door again after issuing these orders, and placing himself once more face to face with Mr. Jubber. "Now I have a last word or two to say, which I recommend you to hear quietly. In the first place, you have no right over the child whatever; for I happen to know that you are without a signed agreement promising you her services. (You had better hear me out for your own sake.) You have no legal right, I say, to control the child in any manner. She is a perfectly free agent, so far as you are concerned.--Yes! yes! you deny it, of course! I have only to say that, if you attempt to back that denial by still asserting your claim to her, and making a disturbance in my house, as sure as you stand there, I'll ruin you in Rubbleford and in all the country round. (It's no use laughing--I can do it!) You beat the child in the vilest manner last night. I am a magistrate; and I have my prosecutor and my witness of the assault ready whenever I choose to call them. I can fine or imprison you, which I please. You know the public; you know what they think of people who ill-use helpless children. If you appeared in that character before me, the Rubbleford paper would report it; and, so far as the interests of your circus are concerned, you would be a ruined man in this part of the country--you would, you know it! Now I will spare you this--not from any tenderness towards you--on condition that you take yourself off quietly, and never let us hear from you again. I strongly advise you to go at once; for if you wait till the constable comes, I will not answer for it that my sense of duty may not force me into giving you into custody." With which words Doctor Joyce threw open the door, and pointed to the hall.
Throughout the delivery of this speech, violent indignation, ungovernable surprise, abject terror, and impotent rage ravaged by turns the breast of Mr. Jubber. He stamped about the room, and uttered fragments of oaths, but did not otherwise interrupt Dr. Joyce, while that gentleman was speaking to him. When the rector had done, the fellow had his insolent answer ready directly. To do him justice, he was consistent, if he was nothing else--he was bully and blackguard to the very last.
"Magistrate or parson," he cried, snapping his fingers, "I don't care a damn for you in either capacity.