“’When this you see, remember me,’” he read. “That was his parting keepsake to me. I’d [ha’] remembered him,” he went on, shaking his head, “if he hadn’t given me a thing. He was a companion as any man would remember.”
It proved that they had so much to say to each other that it was not possible to say it all at one time, and so it was agreed that the next night Dick should make a visit to the store and keep Mr. Hobbs company.
This was the beginning of quite a substantial friendship. When Dick went up to the store, Mr. Hobbs received him with great hospitality. He gave him a chair [tilted] against the door, near a barrel of apples, and after his young visitor was seated, [he made a jerk at them with the hand] in which he held his pipe, saying:
“Help yerself.”
Then they read, and discussed the British aristocracy; and Mr. Hobbs smoked his pipe very hard and shook his head a great deal.
He seemed to derive a great deal of comfort from Dick’s visit. Before Dick went home, they had a supper in the small back room; they had biscuits and cheese and sardines, and other things out of the store, and Mr. Hobbs solemnly opened two bottles of [ginger ale,] and pouring out two glasses, proposed a toast.
[“Here’s to him!”] he said, lifting his glass, “an’ may he teach ’em a lesson—earls an’ [markises] an’ [dooks] an’ all!”
After that night, the two saw each other often, and Mr. Hobbs was much more comfortable and less desolate. They read the Penny Story Gazette, and many other interesting things, and gained a knowledge of the habits of [the nobility and gentry] which would have surprised those despised classes if they had [realised] it. One day Mr. Hobbs made a pilgrimage to a book-store down town, for the express purpose of adding to their library. He went to a clerk and leaned over the counter to speak to him.
“I want,” he said, “a book about earls.”
“What!” exclaimed the clerk.