Up jumped the truncheon , and was going to hit him on the crown a tremendous thump , and drive him down again like a cork into a bottle . But the strange lady put it aside . `` Will you obey me if I give you a chance ? '' `` As you please , ma'am . You 're stronger than me -- that I know too well , and wiser than me , I know too well also . And , as for being my own master , I 've fared ill enough with that as yet . So whatever your ladyship pleases to order me ; for I 'm beat , and that 's the truth . '' `` Be it so then -- you may come out . But remember , disobey me again , and into a worse place still you go . '' `` I beg pardon ma'am , but I never disobeyed you that I know of . I never had the honour of setting eyes upon you till I came to these ugly quarters . '' `` Never saw me ? Who said to you , Those that will be foul , foul they will be ? '' Grimes looked up ; and Tom looked up too ; for the voice was that of the Irishwoman who met them the day that they went out together to Harthover . `` I gave you your warning then : but you gave it yourself a thousand times before and since . Every bad word that you said -- every cruel and mean thing that you did -- every time that you got tipsy -- every day that you went dirty -- you were disobeying me , whether you knew it or not . '' `` If I 'd only known , ma'am -- '' `` You knew well enough that you were disobeying something , though you did not know it was me . But come out and take your chance . Perhaps it may be your last . '' So Grimes stepped out of the chimney , and really , if it had not been for the scars on his face , he looked as clean and respectable as a master-sweep need look .
`` Take him away , '' said she XXXXX the truncheon , `` and give him his ticket-of-leave . ''
As If before for of on since that though to