“And don’t let Mrs Billson gammon you into lending her none of it.”
“No, my dear. And there, good-bye, Bob; be a good boy. I won’t come wherriting of you no more’n I can help.”
The miserable object, from whom out of compassion Richmond Chartley had rescued the boy, shuffled along the street to the nearest public-house, to buy more plus spirit with which to attack her miserable minus spirit, with the result that, as a mathematical problem, one would kill the other as sure as Fate.
Meanwhile Bob stood on the step watching her.
“Wonder whether the old gal does like me? Somehow she allus goes as soon as she gets all a chap’s got. Now she’ll go and have a drop. She allus does when she says she won’t.”
“Bob! you Bob!” came in a shrill voice from the kitchen stairs.
“Can’t you see I’m a-coming?” cried the boy; and hurriedly closing the door, he returned to his work.