“Walk a bit faster. How the oafs do stare!”
“Why, Drew!” cried Frank, suddenly checking himself, as his companion, who had led him to the spot from the opposite side, suddenly turned into the court where they had been wedged in the crowd.
“What is it?” said his companion impatiently. “Come along, quick!”
“But this is the place where they were fighting.”
“Of course; I know it is. What of it? They’re not fighting now.”
As he spoke he was glancing rapidly up and down the court, and with his arm well through that of Frank he urged him on toward the door of the large house.
Frank was annoyed at having, as he felt, been deceived as to their destination, and ready to hang back. But he felt that it would seem cowardly, and that Andrew’s silence had been from a feeling that if he had said where they were coming he would have met with a refusal, while the next moment the boy found himself in the passage of the house.
A burly man, in a big snuff-coloured coat, confronted them, arranging a very curly wig as he came, but smiled, bowed, and drew back to allow the visitors to pass; and with a supercilious nod Andrew led on, apparently quite familiar with the place, and turned up a broad, well-worn staircase, quite half of whose balusters were perfectly new and unpainted, evidently replacing those broken out for weapons during the fight.
The sight of these and their suggestions did not increase Frank’s desire to be there, but he went on up.
“For this time only,” he said to himself; “but I’m not going to let him cheat me again.”