His hat was knocked over his eyes, and the statement of the problem ended in laughter.
With a good deal of difficulty they reached one of the southward byways; and thenceforth walking was unimpeded.
‘You know that I call myself Luckworth Crewe,’ resumed Nancy’s companion after a short silence.
‘Of course I do.’
‘Well, the fact is, I’ve no right to either of the names. I thought I’d just tell you, for the fun of the thing; I shouldn’t talk about it to any one else that I know. They tell me I was picked up on a doorstep in Leeds, and the wife of a mill-hand adopted me. Their name was Crewe. They called me Tom, but somehow it isn’t a name I care for, and when I was grown up I met a man called Luckworth, who was as kind as a father to me, and so I took his name in place of Tom. That’s the long and short of it.’
Nancy looked a trifle disconcerted.
‘You won’t think any worse of me, because I haven’t a name of my own?’
‘Why should I? It isn’t your fault.’
‘No. But I’m not the kind of man to knuckle under. I think myself just as good as anybody else I’ll knock the man down that sneers at me; and I won’t thank anybody for pitying me; that’s the sort of chap I am. And I’m going to have a big fortune one of these days. It’s down in the books. I know I shall live to be a rich man, just as well as I know that I’m walking down Dean Street with Miss. Lord.’
‘I should think it very possible,’ his companion remarked.