Eventually he went to live in a boarding house, a solution which he had always loathed and dreaded. And then his friends lost sight of him altogether.
One evening, as the Pole was sitting alone over his grog, smoking, drinking, and nodding with the capacity of the oriental to lapse into complete stupor, the bookseller burst in on him like a thunderstorm, flung his hat on the table, and shouted:
“Confound him! Has anybody ever heard anything like it?”
The Pole roused himself from his brandy-and-tobacco Nirvana, and rolled his eyes.
“I say, confound it! Has anybody ever heard anything like it? He’s going to be married!”
“Who’s going to be married?” asked the Pole, startled by the bookseller’s violence and emphatic language.
“Schoolmaster Blom!”
The bookseller expected a glass of grog in exchange for his news. The proprietor left the counter and came to their table to listen.
“Has she any money?” he asked acutely.
“I don’t think so,” replied the bookseller, conscious of his temporary importance and selling his wares one by one.