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Updated: September 12, 2025
Mrs Bones clasped the child still closer, and uttered a short, fervent cry for help. "Tottie," she said, "listen you're old enough to understand, I think. Your father is a bad man at least, I won't say he's altogether bad, but but, he's not good." Tottie quite understood that, but said that she was fond of him notwithstanding. "Fond of 'im, child!" cried Mrs Bones, "that's the difficulty.
And, combating the almost invincible repugnance to close investigation which seized me, I presently discovered that the heap concealed, as I had suspected, a half-consumed human body, so dreadfully disfigured that it was only with the utmost difficulty I presently succeeded in identifying it as the remains of a Tottie.
Tottie had some vague idea that this letter-box must have been made in imitation of a pump, and that the spout was a convenient step to enable small people like herself to reach the slit. Only, she thought it queer that they should not have put the spout in front of the pillar under the slit, instead of behind it.
It is strange," he continued faintly, as Aspel bent over him, "that the lady I wanted to rob set me free, for Tottie's sake; and the boy I cast adrift in London risked his life for Tottie; and the man I tried to ruin saved her; and the man I have often cursed from my door has brought me at last to the Sinner's Friend. Strange! very strange!"
I've told you all about that, but did not tell you that the burglar was Tottie's father, as Tottie had made me promise not to mention it to any one. I knew the rascal at once on seeing him in the railway carriage, and could hardly help explodin' in his face at the fun of the affair. Of course he didn't know me on account of my bein' as black in the face as the King of Dahomey.
I tried to get a real 'tottie', or 'Hotentotje', but the people were too drunk to remember where they had left their child. They are clever and affectionate when they have a chance, poor things, and so strange to look at. By the bye, a Bonn man, Dr. Bleek, called here with 'Grusse' from our old friends, Professor Mendelssohn and his wife.
But you needn't tell 'em anything until you're axed, you know it might get me into trouble, d'ee see, an' say to Miss Stivergill it wasn't your father as took the dog, but another man." He leaped over a low part of the hedge and was gone, leaving poor Tottie in a state of bewildered anxiety on the other side.
George Aspel passed the front of the General Post-Office on his way to visit Tottie Bones, and, observing a considerable bustle going on there, he stopped to gaze, for George had an inquiring mind. Being fresh from the country, his progress through the streets of London, as may be well understood, was slow.
There's a dear little dog too, she keeps, I'm told. Is that the only one she owns?" "Yes, it's the only one, and such a darlin' it is, and so fond of me!" exclaimed Tottie. "Ah, yes, wery small, but wery noisy an' vicious," remarked Mr Bones, with a sudden scowl, which fortunately his daughter did not see. "O no, father; little Floppart ain't vicious, though it is awful noisy w'en it chooses."
He paid the money, however, in silence, and was about to take his leave when Mrs Gaff stopped him. "This sum has bin paid to me riglarly for the last three months." "I believe it has," said Kenneth. "And," continued Mrs Gaff, "it's been the means o' keepin' me and my Tottie from starvation."
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