"I've no doubt you owe money all over England. You're a cadger, that's
what you are."
He pointed to the door, and Mr. Carter, after twice opening his lips to
speak and failing, blundered towards it. Miss Evans watched him
curiously.
"Cheats never prosper," she said, with gentle severity.
"Good-by," said Mr. Carter, pausing at the door.
"It's your own fault," continued Miss Evans, who was suffering from a
slight touch of conscience. "If you hadn't come here pretending to be
Bert Simmons and calling me 'Nan' as if you had known me all my life, I
wouldn't have done it."
"It doesn't matter," said Mr. Carter. "I wish I was Bert Simmons, that's
all. Good-by."
"Wish you was!" said Mr. Evans, who had been listening in open-mouthed
astonishment. "Look here! Man to man--are you Bert Simmons or are you
not?"
"No," said Mr. Carter.
"Of course not," said Nancy.
"And you didn't owe that money?"
"Nobody owed it," said Nancy. "It was done just to punish him."
Mr. Evans, with a strange cry, blundered towards the door. "I'll have
that money out of 'em," he roared, "if I have to hold 'em up and shake it
out of their trouser-pockets. You stay here."
He hurried up the road, and Jim, with the set face of a man going into
action against heavy odds, followed him.
"Your father told me to stay," said Mr. Carter, coming farther into the
room.
Nancy looked up at him through her eyelashes. "You need not unless you
want to," she said, very softly.
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