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Their names, yes; there's Scrawley and Sneaking Billy, and Black Dirk, him you know." Mrs. Roberts interrupted him. She begged his pardon, but could those really be the boys names? Were they not rather some unfortunate street names that had been fastened upon them?
It is a terrible robber, and therefore a nuisance round arable land, causing a spreading shade, under which the corn will be found thin, "scrawley," and "broken-kneed," with poor, shrivelled ears; and the alternating green crops will also suffer in their way. In an orchard it is still worse; I had several at one time surrounded by Blenheim apples, which were always small, scanty, and colourless.
Thus brought back to his senses, Policeman Duffer laughed, and admitted that he supposed Sneaking Billy was properly named Sneyder; but he was once caught in a mean trick, from which he tried in so many ways to squirm out, that the boys had themselves named him Sneaking Billy, and the name had stuck. As for "Scrawley," his real name was Stephen Crowley.
How it became contracted into "Scrawley" the boys could tell better than anybody else. They always called him that, and so did other people; and Policeman Duffer was inclined to doubt whether the fellow remembered that he had any other name. "You can see yourself, ma'am," he added, "how Black Dirk came by his name. He is the blackest white fellow as ever I saw, and I've seen crowds of 'em."
Mabel took the paper impatiently from her. "No, like this," she cried, reversing the page. "You should be able to understand the peculiarities of the marks, even though you cannot read." "Like dis is it de high marks shootin' up so, and the long one running out scrigly scrawley like dis one; 'pears 's if I'd seen 'em afore, but 'twasn't in a bounden book, golly knows."
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