“Queer place to live in, Tom, and queer things about Look at this, my lad: here’s my will. I keep it in this old canister, just where it can be found—ready for my executors. What! Hey? Going? Well, good-bye. Come again—often—I shall be glad to see you.”
“Do you mean this?” said Tom, returning the old man’s warm pressure of the hand.
“Hey?”
“I say, do you mean it?”
“Oh yes! I heard. Mean it? Of course I do, man, or I shouldn’t ask you. Only come in a sensible way, not in a ghostly form. None of your drowned ghosts, without their noses. I mean you in the flesh, not in the spirit.”
“You need have no fear,” said Tom sadly. “My mad fit is past. I should not be guilty of such folly.”
“I should think not!” said Hopper, laughing. “We make nearly all our own troubles, my boy; and then men are such cowards that they run away from them. Have another cigar? That’s right—light up. Good-bye, lad. I say, why don’t you go round by your uncle’s house, and have a peep at some one’s window? There, be off; you’re a poor coward of a lover, after all!”