“Well then, what’s yer lay?”
“Merely to serve a friend, that’s all.”
“Hang your artful old eyes, it’s something more than that. I ’xpect you’ll make a jolly lot of couters out on it.”
“Nothing of the sort—I shan’t make a single quid out of it. I pledge my word that it is a mere matter of friendship.”
“S’help my taters, I’m jolly glad to find there’s so much friendship left in the world, but it’s hard to believe for all that.”
“You can please yourself about believing it. I have only to say again what I’ve said is the solemn truth.”
“All right—I don’t want to pry into any man’s secrets. You’ve done the trick cleverly, and that’s what you may call a jolly artful dodge and no mistake, but I’m as dry as a piece of old chunk. Stand a drop of something to drink at the next station.”
“Right you are—you shall have as much as you like.”
When the train arrived at the station the two companions repaired to the refreshment bar, and regaled themselves with some “heavy wet.”
Upon their arrival in London, they betook themselves to their lodging-house, and Bill Rawton presented Cooney with two sovereigns for his services, which the latter considered a handsome recompense. The gipsy, with all his faults, had never been a mean or selfish man, and, certainly, in this case, he did not take the lion’s share, but he was well pleased with the result of his visit to the village church, and was, consequently, in the best of spirits.