“What then?”
“Your dress—your disguise.”
“Disguised yourself!—ha! ha! Behold the world’s charity! You fly from some danger, some pursuit, disguised—you, who hold yourself guiltless—I do the same, and you hold me criminal—a robber, perhaps—a murderer it may be! I will tell you what I am: I am a son of Fortune, an adventurer; I live by my wits—so do poets and lawyers, and all the charlatans of the world; I am a charlatan—a chameleon. ‘Each man in his time plays many parts:’ I play any part in which Money, the Arch-Manager, promises me a livelihood. Are you satisfied?”
“Perhaps,” answered the boy, sadly, “when I know more of the world, I shall understand you better. Strange—strange, that you, out of all men, should have been kind to me in distress!”
“Not at all strange. Ask the beggar whom he gets the most pence from—the fine lady in her carriage—the beau smelling of eau de Cologne? Pish! the people nearest to being beggars themselves keep the beggar alive. You were friendless, and the man who has all earth for a foe befriends you. It is the way of the world, sir,—the way of the world. Come, eat while you can; this time next year you may have no beef to your bread.”
Thus masticating and moralising at the same time, Mr. Gawtrey at last finished a breakfast that would have astonished the whole Corporation of London; and then taking out a large old watch, with an enamelled back—doubtless more German than its master—he said, as he lifted up his carpet-bag, “I must be off—tempos fugit, and I must arrive just in time to nick the vessels. Shall get to Ostend, or Rotterdam, safe and snug; thence to Paris. How my pretty Fan will have grown! Ah, you don’t know Fan—make you a nice little wife one of these days! Cheer up, man, we shall meet again. Be sure of it; and hark ye, that strange place, as you call it, where I took you,—you can find it again?”
“Not I.”
“Here, then, is the address. Whenever you want me, go there, ask to see Mr. Gregg—old fellow with one eye, you recollect—shake him by the hand just so—you catch the trick—practise it again. No, the forefinger thus, that’s right. Say ‘blater,’ no more—‘blater;’—stay, I will write it down for you; and then ask for William Gawtrey’s direction. He will give it you at once, without questions—these signs understood; and if you want money for your passage, he will give you that also, with advice into the bargain. Always a warm welcome with me. And so take care of yourself, and good-bye. I see my chaise is at the door.”
As he spoke, Gawtrey shook the young man’s hand with cordial vigour, and strode off to his chaise, muttering, “Money well laid out—fee money; I shall have him, and, Gad, I like him,—poor devil!”