"You didn't bring him here for a joke?"
"A joke?" I echoed. "A mighty queer joke, sir, you'd have thought
it, if your men had been five minutes earlier."
He leaned back against the wall of the passage. "And you brought him
here _by accident?_ Well, if this don't beat cock-fighting!"
"But who is this Moll Whiteaway?" I repeated.
The question again seemed to take his breath away. For answer he
could only point to a small brass plate in the lower flap of the
door; and, stooping, I read: _Miss Whiteaway, Milliner, Modes and
Robes_.
"Oh!" said I. "That accounts for the band-box of flowers."
"Does it?" he asked.
"She flung them out of window to the packet-men."
"Which, doubtless, seemed to you an everyday proceeding--just a
milliner's usual way of getting rid of her summer stock. My good
young sir, did you ever hear tell of a 'troacher'? Nay, spare that
ingenuous blush: Moll is a loose fish, but I mean less than your
modesty suspects. A 'troacher' is a kind of female smuggler that
disposes of the goods the packet-men bring home in their bunks; and
Moll Whiteaway is the head of the profession in Falmouth.
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