When the month was up, Jim Harkaway came to fetch me. I am sorry to say that he was rather the worse for beer when he arrived, and before we got home he was in a horrible state of intoxication. We met Mr. Harkaway near home, and the way his son addressed him was very shocking; you would not hear it from any creature save man—the noblest in his best condition, in his fall the most degraded.
High words ensued between father and son, and several people stopped one after the other; but they all went on again, saying that it was ‘only old Harkaway and his precious son,’ so I concluded that these scenes between them were growing common. In the end Mr. Harkaway wrenched the bridle away from his son, and led me up a turning opposite the shop. I was surprised at not going home, and still more surprised when he halted before a greengrocer’s shop, and Mr. Harkaway asked a stout woman if her husband was at home.
‘He’s round the yard,’ was the reply; ‘but he will be here in a minute.’
In less than a minute the husband came—a short, thick-set man, deeply pock-marked, and dressed in corduroy, with a flaring red silk handkerchief round his throat.
‘Mornin’, Mr. Harkaway,’ he said.
‘Morning,’ replied my master. ‘I have brought Blossom to you myself. Jim is going on worse than ever.’
‘Sorry to hear it,’ said the other. ‘But you ain’t half sharp enough with him. If he was a son of mine, I would give him the key of the street, as sure as my name is Benjamin Bunter.’
‘Mrs. Harkaway clings to him,’ said Mr. Harkaway nervously; ‘she is a woman, and he is an only son; but it is a great trial—the money he wastes is enough to break one’s heart.’
Not a word about the vice of the youth—it was still pounds, shillings, and pence to the furniture dealer.
“Well, what are we to say for Blossom?’ said the greengrocer, stroking my fore-leg with his hand.