David was ont of his chair and his hand clasped Hardcome's hand. The old man laughed then, a little sheepishly.
“Sort of tickles me!” he said. “Wouldn't the old dame be hopping mad if she knew the cobbler was going to save the Riverbank queen's boy, and his life, and his soul, and the whole caboodle!”
“It would be coals of fire on her head,” smiled David.
“'Twould so!” said Seth Hardcome; “and I reckon the hair is getting pretty thin on the top of her head now, too!”
Then he laughed. And David laughed.
He was still smiling when he stepped out into the street and was told by the first man he met that old Sam Wiggett had just dropped dead in his office.
XII. MONEY MATTERS
LOOKING back, in later years, the death of old Sam Wiggett seemed to David Dean to mark the close of one epoch and the beginning of another, and the day he heard of the engagement of his daughter Alice marked a third.