So I got a young fellow here to pass him
off as HIS little brother, and look after him and board him; and I paid
him a big price for it, too, you bet! You wouldn't think it was a man
who's now swelling around here, the top o' the pile, that ever took
money from a brute like me, and for such schoolmaster work, too; but he
did, and his name was Van Loo, a clerk of the Ditch Company."
"Van Loo!" said the woman, with a movement of disgust; "THAT man!"
"What's the matter with Van Loo?" he said, with a coarse laugh, enjoying
his wife's discomfiture. "He speaks French and Spanish, and you oughter
hear the kid roll off the lingo he's got from him. He's got style, and
knows how to dress, and you ought to see the kid bow and scrape, and how
he carries himself. Now, Van Loo wasn't exactly my style, and I reckon I
don't hanker after him much, but he served my purpose."
"And this man knows"--she said, with a shudder.
"He knows Steptoe and the boy, but he don't know Horncastle nor YOU.
Don't you be skeert. He's the last man in the world who would hanker to
see me or the kid again, or would dare to say that he ever had! Lord!
I'd like to see his fastidious mug if me and Eddy walked in upon him and
his high-toned mother and sister some arternoon." He threw himself back
and laughed a derisive, spasmodic, choking laugh, which was so far from
being genial that it even seemed to indicate a lively appreciation of
pain in others rather than of pleasure in himself.
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