"Where is the unhappy boy?" interrupted the Doctor.
"Seems as if I was a roundin' on 'im, like, don't it a'most, sir?" said Tommy, with too evident symptoms of yielding in his voice. Paul shook so in his terror that he knocked down a broom or two with a clatter which froze his blood.
"Not at all," said the Doctor, "not at all, my good fellow; you're—ahem—advancing the cause of moral order."
"Oh, ah," said Tommy, obviously open to conviction. "Well, if I'm a doin' all that, I can't go fur wrong, can I? And arter all, we mayn't like schools or schoolmasters, not over above, but we can't get on without 'em, I s'pose. But, look ye here, sir—if I goes and tells you where you can get hold of this here boy, you won't go and wallop him now, will ye?"
"I can make no bargains," said the Doctor; "I shall act on my own discretion."
"That's it," said Tommy, unaccountably relieved, "spoke like a merciful Christian gen'leman; if you don't go actin' on nothing more nor your discretion, you can't hurt him much, I take it. Well then, since you've spoke out fair, I don't mind putting you on his track like."
If the door of the cupboard had not been locked, Paul would undoubtedly have burst out and yielded himself up, to escape the humiliation of being sold like this by a mercenary and treacherous porter. As it was, he had to wait till the inevitable words should be spoken.
"Well, you see," went on Tommy, very slowly, as if struggling with the remnants of a conscience, "it was like this here—he comes up to me, and says—your young gen'leman, I mean—says he, 'Porter, I wants to 'ide, I've run away.' And I says to him, says I, 'It's no use your 'anging about 'ere,' I says, ''cause, if you do, your guv'nor (meanin' no offence to you, sir) 'll be comin' up and ketchin' of you on the 'op.' 'Right you are, porter,' says he to me, 'what do you advise?' he says. 'Well,' I says, 'I don't know as I'm right in givin' you no advice at all, havin' run away from them as has the care on you,' I says; 'but if I was a young gen'leman as didn't want to be ketched, I should just walk on to Dufferton; it ain't on'y three mile or so, and you'll 'ave time for to do it before the up-train comes along there.' 'Thankee, porter,' he says, 'I'll do that,' and away he bolts, and for anything I know, he's 'arf way there by this time."
"A fly!" shouted the Doctor excitedly, when Tommy had come to the end of his veracious account. "I'll catch the young rascal now—who has a good horse? Davis, I'll take you. Five shillings if you reach Dufferton before the up-train. Take the——"