[CHAPTER VII.]
THE WAY OF TRANSGRESSORS IS HARD.
AT breakfast time the next morning Tom's uncle took the shilling again from his purse, and turned it about in his hand. "I hope you haven't got yourself mixed up with any young thief, Master Tom?" he said. "I saw one of your people yesterday, and he told me you were getting on very well, and if this lad who has been away on account of his health is not able to come back, you would stand a very good chance of getting into the office altogether, and that would be a good lift for you."
"Yes, uncle," said Tom, in rather an absent tone, for he was wishing he had never seen Jack, or had kept clear of having anything to do with him.
He went to work feeling desperately miserable again, and wishing he had never come to London, but had been content to be a blacksmith like his father. But this last wish did not last long. Oh, he could not live in the country all his life, he was quite sure, he said to himself.
The fuss his uncle had been making over the shilling being marked need not frighten him. He had not stolen it. And even if anyone found out that he had got it, they were not to know how it was Jack had to pay him this money, unless he told, and he made up his mind he would not do that.
He also decided that he would not go to meet Jack that evening, but stay at home and write a letter to his mother and Dick to send with the gloves.
On his way back he stopped to look into a shop window at the Christmas cards displayed in tempting profusion, for he thought he might buy one for his mother, without telling his uncle anything about it; for if he knew he had more money than the eighteenpence he had paid for the gloves, he might ask a good many inconvenient questions about the matter.
It was some time, however, before he could make up his mind which one to select, and at last when the choice was made, and he went into the shop to buy it, he found to his dismay that he had got no money to pay for it.