“I am afraid, sir, I am taking a liberty,” said Tom, rather nervously, twiddling his hat between his fingers.
“I should be a greater friend to liberty than I am if it were always taken in the same way,” said Kenelm, with a touch of his saturnine humour; but then yielding at once to the warmer impulse of his nature, he grasped his old antagonist’s hand and exclaimed, “My dear Tom, you are so welcome. I am so glad to see you. Sit down, man; sit down: make yourself at home.”
“I did not know you were back in England, sir, till within the last few days; for you did say that when you came back I should see or hear from you,” and there was a tone of reproach in the last words.
“I am to blame, forgive me,” said Kenelm, remorsefully. “But how did you find me out? you did not then, I think, even know my name. That, however, it was easy enough to discover; but who gave you my address in this lodging?”
“Well, sir, it was Miss Travers; and she bade me come to you. Otherwise, as you did not send for me, it was scarcely my place to call uninvited.”
“But, my dear Tom, I never dreamed that you were in London. One don’t ask a man whom one supposes to be more than a hundred miles off to pay one an afternoon call. You are still with your uncle, I presume? and I need not ask if all thrives well with you: you look a prosperous man, every inch of you, from crown to toe.”
“Yes,” said Tom; “thank you kindly, sir, I am doing well in the way of business, and my uncle is to give me up the whole concern at Christmas.”
While Tom thus spoke Kenelm had summoned his servant, and ordered up such refreshments as could be found in the larder of a bachelor in lodgings. “And what brings you to town, Tom?”
“Miss Travers wrote to me about a little business which she was good enough to manage for me, and said you wished to know about it; and so, after turning it over in my mind for a few days, I resolved to come to town: indeed,” added Tom, heartily, “I did wish to see your face again.”
“But you talk riddles. What business of yours could Miss Travers imagine I wished to know about?”