"Awkward!" said Dallas, in a thick voice, "it's more than awkward, as he shall find! I'll be even with him--I'll--Hallo! What do you want, intruding on gentlemen's conversation?"
"Beg pardon, sir," said the waiter, to whom this last remark was addressed; "no offence, gentlemen, but going to shut up now! We ain't a supper-'ouse, gentlemen, and it's going on for twelve o'clock."
Indeed, all the other tables were vacated, so Deane rose at once and paid the bill which the waiter had laid before him. Dallas rose too with a staggering step.
"Coat, sir," said the waiter, handing it to him; "other arm, sir, please; gently does it, sir; that's it!" And with some little difficulty he pulled the coat on: George Dallas cursing it, and the country tailor who had made it, as he stood rocking uneasily on his heels and glaring vacantly before him.
"Come along, old horse," said Deane; "you'll be fixed as firm as Washington Capitol when we get into the air. Come along, and we'll go and finish the night somewhere!"
So saying, he tucked his companion's arm firmly within his own, and they sallied forth.
[CHAPTER VI.]
DELAY.
George Dallas felt that his fortunes were in the ascendant, when he arose on the morning following the dinner with Deane, and found himself possessed of ten pounds, which he had been sufficiently sober to win at billiards the previous night, and consequently in a position to pay off his landlady, and turn his back upon the wretched lodging, which her temper, tyranny, and meanness had made more wretched. He lost no time in packing up the few articles he possessed--mainly consisting of books and drawing-materials--and these, together with his scanty wardrobe, he threw into a couple of trunks, which he himself carried down the steep dark staircase and deposited in a cab. The landlady stood at the door, in the gray morning, and watched her late lodger, as he strode down the shabby little street, followed by the luggage-laden cab. She watched him, wondering. She wondered where he had got the money he had just paid her. She wondered where he had got the money to pay an extra week's rent, in default of a week's notice. When she had dunned him yesterday, as rudely and mercilessly as usual, he had said nothing indicative of an expectation of an immediate supply of money. He had only said that he hoped to pay her soon. "Where did he get the money?" the old woman thought, as she watched him. "I hope he come by it honest. I wonder where he's going to. He did not tell the cabman, leastways so as I could hear him. Ah! It ain't no business of mine; I'll just turn the rooms out a bit, and put up the bill."
So Mrs. Gunther (for that was the lady's name) re-entered the shabby house, and a great activity accompanied by perpetual scolding pervaded it for some hours, during which the late tenant was journeying down to Amherst.