With a gesture really dramatic he smote his chest with his two clenched fists, and drew a long, grating sigh.
We were sitting on our beds, which were side by side in one of the dormitories. It was the nearest thing to privacy the club-house ever allowed us.
“This’ll be the hend of me; and it’ll be the hend of you, Slim, if I ain’t there to watch over you. You’ll never keep straight without me, sonny.” He was struck with a new idea, and, indeed, I had thought of it myself. “Didn’t ye say,” he went on, as he leaned forward and tapped my knee, “that in them rooms there was one little dark room?”
“Very little and very dark.”
“But it wouldn’t be too little or too dark for me, Slim, not if I could be your valet, like. I could do everythink for you, just like a gentleman. My father was a valet, and he larned me before he couldn’t larn me nothink else. I could keep your clothes so as you’d never need new ones, and I could mend and darn and cook your breakfasts—I’m a swell cook—I can bile tea and coffee and heggs—many’s the time I’ve done it—”
“All right, Lovey,” I interrupted. “It’s a bargain. We’re buddies.”
“No, Slim; we won’t be buddies no more. We’ll call that off. We’ll just be master and man. I’ll know my place and I’ll keep it. I sha’n’t call you Slim, nor sonny—”
“Oh yes, you must.”
He shook his head.
“No; not after we’ve moved from the club. I’ll call you Mr. Melbury and say sir to you; and you must call me Lovey, just as if it was my real name.” He added, unexpectedly to me: “I suppose ye know it ain’t my real name?”