"Don't gentleman me," Tug said, bringing the light over to look at the woman's face. "I'm not a gentleman; I'm a thief, and I've stolen a woman. Nor is _he_ a gentleman," pointing to Davy, and holding his head to one side to get a bead on him. "He's the greatest scoundrel that ever lived. Look at the audacious villain now! Look at him! Did you ever see a person who looked so much like the devil? And he _is_ the devil, when he gets started. He's keen to get at you now, and I'll have trouble with him if you are at all unreasonable."
Davy looked like anything but a villain as he meekly watched the pair from the other side of the room; indeed, he was thinking that Tug was carrying the matter entirely too far, and was becoming alarmed. But Tug did not share this feeling of apprehension, for he seemed desperately in earnest as he held the lamp close to the woman's face, who tried to shield it from his sight with her thin, trembling hands, and cried out in the same weak voice: "Gentlemen! In the name of God! I appeal to you as gentlemen!"
A very small woman, with shrivelled face and sharp features, was Tug's booty, and she trembled violently as she piteously held out her hands to the two men. Tug thought of her as the key to the problem he had been attempting to solve, so he stood between her and the door to prevent escape. But Silas felt sure that the woman had but lately risen from a sick bed; for she was weak and trembling, and from sitting long in the damp river air, there was a distressed and painful flush in her face.
"Come now, sister," Tug said, seating himself in front of her, and frowning like a pirate. "Tell us what you know, and be carried back to your boat. If you refuse to do it, we will take you on a journey to the Hedgepath graveyard, in the woods over the river, where we will erect a stone Sacred to the Memory of an Obstinate Woman. Which will you have? Use your tongue; which will you have?"
But the woman made no other reply than to appeal to them as gentlemen, in the name of God, and cry, and wring her hands.
"In case you ever see that foxy companion of yourn again, which is extremely doubtful, for I have a companion who murders for the love of it--(Here, now, take your hand off that knife, will you," Tug said, by way of parenthesis to Silas, looking at him sharply. Then going over to him, he pretended to take a knife out of Davy's inside coat pocket, and hide it in the cupboard). "If you ever see your friend Sneak again, say to him that I intend to get his head. He is bothering a friend of mine, and I intend to create a commotion inside of him for it."