“Not likely!” said Mr. Dobb to Mr. Lock, when they were alone. “Once bit, twice jolly, blessed careful! But I’m glad you sent for me, Peter. I think ’e’ll be useful—when I can see my way to using ’im. Anyway, I’m meeting ’im again to-morrow, and I shall take partic’lar good care to meet ’im again and again for the next few days, and ’oo knows what’s going to ’appen in this strange world?”
“You do!” answered Mr. Lock. “Very often, anyway!”
Superfluous is it to say that Mr. Dobb kept to his expressed intentions with regard to the gifted Mr. Bellaby, for to beat along convivial paths in quest of profitable quarry was ever the form of sportsmanship that appealed most strongly to Mr. Dobb.
So that Mr. Dobb and Mr. Bellaby became the closest of intimates within a very brief while, and there were few of his spare hours which Mr. Bellaby did not pass in the company of Mr. Dobb. And this was a state of affairs which naturally exercised a financial reaction upon the latter gentleman, though he bore philosophically with the expenditure in expectation of the reward it would bring him eventually.
For the moment, however, he had to admit to himself that the precise means to secure this reward was a matter which obstinately eluded his ingenuity, so that his boon companionship with Mr. Bellaby had in it something of that same fatalistic force which impels the gambler to continue to wager optimistically on the same unsuccessful racehorse.
And so, for several days, the friendship bloomed in profuse flower, and behind Mr. Dobb’s artless joviality and pride in the companionship of the gifted Mr. Bellaby there was no hint of the problem that obsessed his mind. It was only when Mr. Dobb was alone that geniality dropped from him and was succeeded by a morose calculativeness.
And this was his mood one evening when, parting from Mr. Bellaby at the very stage-door with the expressed intention of attending to certain neglected business, he encountered the lovesick Mr. Samuel Clark.
Dull and vacant was the look in Mr. Clark’s eyes, dejected was the hump of his shoulders. Had not Mr. Dobb accosted him he would have passed straight on, so apathetic was the stout ferryman towards his surroundings.
“’Ullo, Misery!” greeted Mr. Dobb.
“’Ullo, ’Orace,” returned Mr. Clark, in slow, unhappy tones.