Toby hastened to adjust his features to a becoming expression of gravity. "I won't, sir. No, I won't. I'll be a good servant to you—the best you've ever had. I'll never forget your goodness to me, and I'll pay back somehow—that I will, sir."
His boyish voice suddenly throbbed with emotion, and he stopped. Again for a moment he had the forlorn look of a small animal astray from its own.
Saltash patted his shoulder kindly. "All right. That'll do. Don't be tragic about it! Come along to your burrow and have a good square sleep!"
He led him away without further words, and Toby went, gratefully and submissively.
A few minutes later Saltash came back with a smile on his ugly face, half-quizzical, and half-compassionate.
"Rum little devil!" he commented again as he began to undress. "So the gods had a gift for me after all! Wonder what I shall do with it!"
And then abruptly the smile became a mocking grimace that banished all the kindliness from his face. He snapped his fingers and laughed as he had laughed a little earlier when his cigarette had fallen into the water with a sound like the hiss of a serpent.
"I—wonder!" he said again.