"My German master," answered Tom.
The next moment he could have knocked his head against the wall with indignation at himself. For, always behindhand when left to himself, he was ready enough when played upon by another to respond and repent.
"He's got a hangdog phiz of his own," said Mr. Stopper, as he plunged again into the business before him, writing away as deliberately as if it had been on parchment instead of foolscap; for Stopper was never in a hurry, and never behind.
Tom's face flushed red with wrath.
"I'll thank you to be civil in your remarks on my friends, Mr. Stopper."
Mr. Stopper answered with a small puff of windy breath from distended lips. He blew, in short. Tom felt his eyes waver. He grew almost blind with rage. If he had followed his inclination, he would have brought the ruler beside him down, with a terrible crack, on the head, before him. "Why didn't he?" does my reader inquire? Just because of his incapacity for action of any sort. He did not refrain in the pity that disarms some men in the midst of their wrath, nor yet from the sense that vengeance is God's business, and will be carried out in a mode rather different from that in which man would prosecute his.
CHAPTER XIX.
HOW TOM SPENT THE EVENING.
When Tom left the office he walked into Mr. Kitely's shop, for he was afraid lest Mr. Stopper should see him turn up to Guild Court. He had almost forgotten Mr. Kitely's behavior about the book he would not keep for him, and his resentment was gone quite. There was nobody in the shop but Mattie.