“Good heavens!”
“And says he, 'I don't say for gas, but you tell Mr. Hawes I shan't be without bed nothing nigh so long as that.'”
Mr. Eden and Evans exchanged a meaning glance; so did Fry and Hawes.
“Then I said, 'No! I shan't tell Mr. Hawes anything to make him punish you any more, because you are punished too much as it is,' says I—”
“I am glad you said that. But tell me what he said. Did he complain? did he use angry or bitter words?—you make me drag it out of you.”
“No! he didn't! He wasn't one of that sort! The next thing was, he asked me to give him my hand. Well, I was surprised like at his asking for my hand, and I doing him such an ill-turn. So then he said, 'Mr. Hodges,' says he, 'why not? I never took away your bed from under you, so you can give me your hand, if I can give you mine.'”
“Oh! what a beautiful nature! Ah! these are golden words. I hope for the credit of human nature you gave him your hand?”
“Why, of course I did, sir. I had no malice; it was ignorance, and owing to being so used to obey the governor.”
Here Mr. Hawes, who had remained quiet all this time, now absorbed in his own reflections, now listening sullenly to these strange scenes in which the dead boy seemed for a time to have eclipsed his importance, burst angrily in.
“I have listened patiently to you, Mr. Eden, to see how far you would go; but I see if I wait till you leave off undermining me with my servants, I may wait a long while.”