“Where were you?” said Oliver, as he clung to the man’s hand.
“Oh, clost along here by the waterside, sir.”
“But did you fall in? No; you are not wet.”
“Oh, no, sir, I never fell. I’m dry enough.”
“Then how came you to hang behind, and cause all this trouble and alarm?”
“’Cause company’s good, they says, if you’re going to be hanged; and as you wasn’t, sir, I ’adn’t the ’art to let you stop all alone here in the dark.”
“Why, it isn’t Wriggs, then?”
“Nay, sir, that’s for sartin, I on’y wish as how it was.”
“Why, Smith, my good fellow! Then you stopped back to keep me company?”
“That’s so, sir, and I thought it would be best. You see it’ll be bad enough for two on us to wait, but for one all alone in a coal-cellar like this, it’s too horful I says to myself, and so I just hung back, and here I am, sir.”