"Yes, yes, uncle. I've been too much wrapped up in myself, and given no thought to the best friends a young ne'er-do-well ever had. If I could only make it up to you!" He turned his face to the wall, so that the Inspector should not see the tears that rushed into his eyes.
"Dick, my lad," said Inspector Robson, "have you got yourself into any money difficulty? Say the word, and I'll see what we can do to get you out of it."
"What a trump you are!" exclaimed Dick. "No, uncle. I owe no one a shilling except you and Aunt Rob."
"Don't keep on harping on that string or you'll get my temper up. If it isn't money, is it a woman?"
"If you mean whether I've entangled myself with a woman, or done anything wrong that way, I can answer honestly, no."
"I knew it, my lad, I knew it," said Inspector Robson, triumphantly. "Whatever your faults may be I was sure there wasn't a bit of vice in you. And now I tell you what it is; you shall come home with me to-night, your room's ready for you, and I'll make it all right with Aunt Rob. Make it all right! It is all right. 'The place isn't the same, father,' she says to me, 'with Dick out of it.' If you knew how we've missed you, my lad, you'd grow an inch taller."
"Who is it that has kept my room ready for me?"
"Aunt Rob and Florence, to be sure."
"And Florence," whispered Dick to himself, a wave of exceeding tenderness flowing over him.
"Florence it was who said to Aunt Rob, 'Mother, we mustn't let Dick think when he comes back that we've been neglectful of him.' 'Of course not,' said Aunt Rob, and up they go to see that everything is sweet and clean. You know the pride that Aunt Rob takes in the house. You might eat off the floor. And there's Florence of a morning sweeping out your room, and looking in every corner for a speck of dust. There's the canary and the cage you gave her, and the goldfish--why, if they were her own little babies she couldn't look after them better. So home we go together, and we'll let bygones be bygones and commence afresh."