‘Why, Tom, old boy, where on earth have you been? Your box is here. Get your boots off instantly, and sit down!’
‘I am sorry to say I can’t stay, John,’ replied Tom Pinch, who was breathless with the haste he had made in running up the stairs.
‘Can’t stay!’
‘If you’ll go on with your dinner,’ said Tom, ‘I’ll tell you my reason the while. I mustn’t eat myself, or I shall have no appetite for the chops.’
‘There are no chops here, my food fellow.’
‘No. But there are at Islington,’ said Tom.
John Westlock was perfectly confounded by this reply, and vowed he would not touch a morsel until Tom had explained himself fully. So Tom sat down, and told him all; to which he listened with the greatest interest.
He knew Tom too well, and respected his delicacy too much, to ask him why he had taken these measures without communicating with him first. He quite concurred in the expediency of Tom’s immediately returning to his sister, as he knew so little of the place in which he had left her, and good-humouredly proposed to ride back with him in a cab, in which he might convey his box. Tom’s proposition that he should sup with them that night, he flatly rejected, but made an appointment with him for the morrow. ‘And now Tom,’ he said, as they rode along, ‘I have a question to ask you to which I expect a manly and straightforward answer. Do you want any money? I am pretty sure you do.’
‘I don’t indeed,’ said Tom.
‘I believe you are deceiving me.’