“Me, sir?”
“Yes, or anybody else. Let it rest, Sam. Grip’s legs are quite well again.”
“That’s what you may call snubbing a chap,” said Hardock to himself as he went away. “Well, he needn’t have been quite so chuff with a man; I only meant—Well, I am blessed!”
Sam Hardock said “blessed,” but he looked and felt as if it were the very opposite; and he hurried back to the office where Gwyn had just been joined by Joe, who had been back home to see how his father was getting on, for he was suffering from another of his fits.
Hardock thrust his head in at the door, and without preface groaned out,—
“You’d better go and chain that there dog up, sir,” and he nodded to where the animal he alluded to had made himself comfortable on the rug.
“Grip? Why?” said Gwyn.
“He’s back again, sir.”
“Who is?” said Gwyn, though he felt that he knew.
“Tom Dinass, sir. Talk about bad shillings coming back—why, he’s worse than a bad sixpence.”