‘For yourself,’ said Brass. ‘From—’
‘No matter about the person they came from,’ replied the lawyer. ‘Say me, if you like. We have eccentric friends overhead, Kit, and we mustn’t ask questions or talk too much—you understand? You’re to take them, that’s all; and between you and me, I don’t think they’ll be the last you’ll have to take from the same place. I hope not. Good bye, Kit. Good bye!’
With many thanks, and many more self-reproaches for having on such slight grounds suspected one who in their very first conversation turned out such a different man from what he had supposed, Kit took the money and made the best of his way home. Mr Brass remained airing himself at the fire, and resumed his vocal exercise, and his seraphic smile, simultaneously.
‘May I come in?’ said Miss Sally, peeping.
‘Oh yes, you may come in,’ returned her brother.
‘Ahem!’ coughed Miss Brass interrogatively.
‘Why, yes,’ returned Sampson, ‘I should say as good as done.’
CHAPTER 57
Mr Chuckster’s indignant apprehensions were not without foundation. Certainly the friendship between the single gentleman and Mr Garland was not suffered to cool, but had a rapid growth and flourished exceedingly. They were soon in habits of constant intercourse and communication; and the single gentleman labouring at this time under a slight attack of illness—the consequence most probably of his late excited feelings and subsequent disappointment—furnished a reason for their holding yet more frequent correspondence; so that some one of the inmates of Abel Cottage, Finchley, came backwards and forwards between that place and Bevis Marks, almost every day.