Lucy was soon ready, and then, with a couple of inches added to his stature, the old man proudly escorted her through court, lane, and street, to the warehouse; and then patiently waited till her business was transacted. Many a glance was directed at the strangely-assorted couple, but he would have been a bold man who would have insulted the poor girl, who leaned so trustingly upon the old printer’s arm till they reached the court, where he allowed her to go first, stopping and scratching his cheek viciously as he saw Lucy tremblingly hold out her hand to a woman who hurriedly passed from the house opposite that occupied by Septimus. They seemed to have met before; but old Matt looked vexed and undecided. Once he closed up, but a glance from Lucy sent him back, when he passed the rest of his time in returning with interest the bold, inquisitive stare of Mr William Jarker, who stood with a couple of friends in the entrance of the court, watching Lucy and the stranger with some degree of interest, till Mr Jarker caught Matt’s eye, when he turned to his companions, said something, and they walked off together, Matt’s quick ear catching the words, “9:30,” and a click or two as if one of the men carried tools in the pocket of his shooting-jacket.
Directly after, the stranger passed old Matt with a quiet appealing look, to which he replied with a nod of a very undecided description, half civil, half angry; and then, still scratching his silver-stubbled cheek, he wished Lucy good-night, shaking his head the while, to which she replied, “Please don’t be angry,” in a way that brought a smile into the old man’s countenance; a sunny smile that began at one corner of his month, and then spread through stubbly whisker, and over wrinkle, till it was all over his face, clearing away the shadow that had lain there; but as old Matt turned away, his head began to shake, and the shadow that had been lurking in the farther whisker crept back again, slowly and surely, as night crept down over Bennett’s-rents to hide the sordid misery that chose the court for its home.
“What’s ‘9:30’?” said Matt to himself, as passing out of the court his thoughts took a fresh direction. “Nice-looking party that. ’Spose I button up my coat over my gold repeater. They were thinking about what’s o’clock, they were, hang ’em.”
Old Matt Space suited the action to the word, bursting off a button in the operation, and then carefully picking it up and saving it, as he strode off muttering.
“‘Nine-thirty’? What’s their little game?”
Volume One—Chapter Twelve.
Friends from Town.
“For God’s sake, Octy,” gurgled Doctor Hardon almost inaudibly, so tightly were the fingers clutching his throat,—“don’t! don’t! I was only looking.”