I turned to take Jicks by the hand. While I had been speaking to Oscar
the child had slipped away from me. Not a sign of her was to be seen.

Before we could stir a step to search for our lost Gipsy, her voice
reached our ears, raised shrill and angry in the regions behind us, at
the side of the house.

"Go away!" we heard the child cry out impatiently. "Ugly men, go away!"

We turned the corner, and discovered two shabby strangers, resting
themselves against the side wall of the house. Their cadaverous faces,
their brutish expressions, and their frowzy clothes, proclaimed them, to
my eye, as belonging to the vilest blackguard type that the civilized
earth has yet produced--the blackguard of London growth. There they
lounged, with their hands in their pockets and their backs against the
wall, as if they were airing themselves on the outer side of a
public-house--and there stood Jicks, with her legs planted wide apart on
the turf, asserting the rights of property (even at that early age!) and
ordering the rascals off.

"What are you doing there?" asked Oscar sharply.

One of the men appeared to be on the point of making an insolent answer.
The other--the younger and the viler-looking villain of the two--checked
him, and spoke first.

"We've had a longish walk, sir," said the fellow, with an impudent
assumption of humility; "and we've took the liberty of resting our backs
against your wall, and feasting our eyes on the beauty of your young lady