"Mrs. Postwhistle--yes, I did ask her to look out for someone for me. Why, do you know of anyone? Have you been sent by anybody?"
"You don't want anything too 'laborate in the way o' cooking? You was a simple old chap, so they said; not much trouble."
"No--no. I don't want much--someone clean and respectable. But why couldn't she come herself? Who is it?"
"Well, what's wrong about me?"
"I beg your pardon," said Mr. Peter Hope.
"Why won't I do? I can make beds and clean rooms--all that sort o' thing. As for cooking, I've got a natural aptitude for it. You ask Emma; she'll tell you. You don't want nothing 'laborate?"
"Elizabeth," said Mr. Peter Hope, as he crossed and, taking up the poker, proceeded to stir the fire, "are we awake or asleep?"
Elizabeth thus appealed to, raised herself on her hind legs and dug her claws into her master's thigh. Mr. Hope's trousers being thin, it was the most practical answer she could have given him.
"Done a lot of looking after other people for their benefit," continued Tommy. "Don't see why I shouldn't do it for my own."
"My dear--I do wish I knew whether you were a boy or a girl. Do you seriously suggest that I should engage you as my housekeeper?" asked Mr. Peter Hope, now upright with his back to the fire.
"I'd do for you all right," persisted Tommy. "You give me my grub and a shake-down and, say, sixpence a week, and I'll grumble less than most of 'em."
"Don't be ridiculous," said Mr. Peter Hope.
"You won't try me?"
"Of course not; you must be mad."
"All right. No harm done." The dirty hand reached out towards the desk, and possessing itself again of Hammond's Bill of Fare, commenced the operations necessary for bearing it away in safety.
"Here's a shilling for you," said Mr. Peter Hope.
"Rather not," said Tommy. "Thanks all the same."
"Nonsense!" said Mr. Peter Hope.
"Rather not," repeated Tommy. "Never know where that sort of thing may lead you to."
"All right," said Mr. Peter Hope, replacing the coin in his pocket.
"Don't!"
The figure moved towards the door.
"Wait a minute. Wait a minute," said Mr. Peter Hope irritably.
The figure, with its hand upon the door, stood still.
"Are you going back to Hammond's?"
"No. I've finished there. Only took me on for a couple o' weeks, while one of the gals was ill. She came back this morning."
"Who are your people?"
Tommy seemed puzzled. "What d'ye mean?"
"Well, whom do you live with?"
"Nobody."
"You've got nobody to look after you--to take care of you?"
"Take care of me! D'ye think I'm a bloomin' kid?"
"Then where are you going to now?"
"Going? Out."
Peter Hope's irritation was growing.
"I mean, where are you going to sleep? Got any money for a lodging?"
"Yes, I've got some money," answered Tommy. "But I don't think much o' lodgings. Not a particular nice class as you meet there.
I shall sleep out to-night. 'Tain't raining."
Elizabeth uttered a piercing cry.
"Serves you right!" growled Peter savagely. "How can anyone help treading on you when you will get just between one's legs. Told you of it a hundred times."
The truth of the matter was that Peter was becoming very angry with himself. For no reason whatever, as he told himself, his memory would persist in wandering to Ilford Cemetery, in a certain desolate corner of which lay a fragile little woman whose lungs had been but ill adapted to breathing London fogs; with, on the top of her, a still smaller and still more fragile mite of humanity that, in compliment to its only relative worth a penny-piece, had been christened Thomas--a name common enough in all conscience, as Peter had reminded himself more than once. In the name of common sense, what had dead and buried Tommy Hope to do with this affair? The whole thing was the veriest sentiment, and sentiment was Mr. Peter Hope's abomination. Had he not penned articles innumerable pointing out its baneful influence upon the age? Had he not always condemned it, wherever he had come across it in play or book? Now and then the suspicion had crossed Peter's mind that, in spite of all this, he was somewhat of a sentimentalist himself--things had suggested this to him. The fear had always made him savage.
"You wait here till I come back," he growled, seizing the astonished Tommy by the worsted comforter and spinning it into the centre of the room. "Sit down, and don't you dare to move." And Peter went out and slammed the door behind him.
"Bit off his chump, ain't he?" remarked Tommy to Elizabeth, as the sound of Peter's descending footsteps died away. People had a way of addressing remarks to Elizabeth. Something in her manner invited this.
"Oh, well, it's all in the day's work," commented Tommy cheerfully, and sat down as bid.
Five minutes passed, maybe ten. Then Peter returned, accompanied by a large, restful lady, to whom surprise--one felt it instinctively--had always been, and always would remain, an unknown quantity.
Tommy rose.
"That's the--the article," explained Peter.
Mrs. Postwhistle compressed her lips and slightly tossed her head.
It was the attitude of not ill-natured contempt from which she regarded most human affairs.
"That's right," said Mrs. Postwhistle; "I remember seeing 'er there--leastways, it was an 'er right enough then. What 'ave you done with your clothes?"
"They weren't mine," explained Tommy. "They were things what Mrs.
Hammond had lent me."
"Is that your own?" asked Mrs. Postwhistle, indicating the blue silk garibaldi.
"Yes."
"What went with it?"
"Tights. They were too far gone."
"What made you give up the tumbling business and go to Mrs.
'Ammond's?"
"It gave me up. Hurt myself."
"Who were you with last?"
"Martini troupe."
"And before that?"
"Oh! heaps of 'em."
"Nobody ever told you whether you was a boy or a girl?"
"Nobody as I'd care to believe. Some of them called me the one, some of them the other. It depended upon what was wanted."
"How old are you?"
"I dunno."
Mrs. Postwhistle turned to Peter, who was jingling keys.
"Well, there's the bed upstairs. It's for you to decide."
