"Now," said Mr. Fuller, "go and see your friends. When you think of it, my boy," he added, after a pause, during which he held Tom's hand in a warm grasp, "you will see how God has been looking after you, giving you friend after friend of such different sorts to make up for the want of a father, and so driving you home at last, home to himself. He had to drive you; but he will lead you now. You will be home by half-past six or seven?"
Thomas assented. He could not speak. He could only return the grasp of Mr. Fuller's hand. Then he took his cap and went.
It is needless to give any detailed account of Thomas's meeting with the Pottses. He did not see the captain, who had gone down to his brig. Mrs. Potts (and Bessie too, after a fashion) welcomed him heartily; but Mr. Potts was a little aggrieved that he would drink nothing but a glass of bitter ale. He had the watch safe, and brought it out gladly when Thomas produced his check.
Jim Salter dropped in at the last moment. He had heard the night before that Thomas was restored to society and was expected to call at the Mermaid some time that day. So he had been in or looking in a dozen times since the morning. When he saw Tom, who was just taking his leave, he came up to him, holding out his hand, but speaking as with a sense of wrong.
"How de do, guv'nor? Who'd ha' thought to see you here! Ain't you got ne'er another sixpence to put a name upon it? You're fond o' sixpences, you are, guv'nor."
"What do you mean, Jim?" asked Thomas, in much bewilderment.
"To think o' treatin' a man and a brother as you've treated me, after I'd been and devoted my life, leastways a good part of it, to save you from the police! Four and sixpence!"
Still bewildered, Thomas appealed to Mr. Potts, whose face looked as like a caricature of the moon as ever, although he had just worked out a very neat little problem in diplomacy.
"It's my fault, Mr. Worboise," he responded in his usual voice, which seemed to come from a throat lined with the insides of dates. "I forgot to tell you, sir, that, that—Don't you see, Jim, you fool!" he said, changing the object of his address abruptly—"you wouldn't have liked to rob a gentleman like that by takin' of half a suvering for loafin' about for a day with him when he was hard up. But as he's come by his own again, why there's no use in keeping it from you any longer. So there's your five and sixpence. But it's a devil of a shame. Go out of my house."
"Whew!" whistled; Jim Salter. "Two words to that, guv'nor o' the Marmaid. You've been and kep' me all this many a day out of my inheritance, as they say at the Britanuary. What do you say to that, sir? What do you think o' yerself, sir? I wait a reply, as the butcher said to the pig."