Read "The Poacher" by Frederick Marryat online for free on Textopian. Full text with search, annotations, highlights, and AI-powered reading aids.
Joey made his obeisance, and departed as if he was frightened, Miss Melissa watched him: at last she thought, "Tinker or no tinker? that is the question. No tinker, for a cool hundred, as my father would say; for, no tinker's boy, no tinker; and that is no tinker's boy. How clever of him to say that the letter was given him by a gentleman! Now I can send to him to interrogate him, and have an interview without any offence to my feelings; and if he is disguised, as I feel confident that he is, I shall soon discover it."
Miss Melissa Mathews did not sleep that night; and at the time appointed she was sitting on the bench, with all the assumed dignity of a newly-made magistrate. Spikeman and Joey were not long before they made their appearance. Spikeman was particularly clean and neat, although he took care to wear the outward appearance of a tinker; his hands were, by continual washing in hot water, very white, and he had paid every attention to his person, except in wearing his rough and sullied clothes.