“My! You are a sight, Master Aleck! Whatever have you been a-doing to yourself?”
“Fighting, I tell you,” said the boy, smiling in the middle-aged maid’s homely face.
“Who with, my dear?”
“Oh, some of the fishermen’s boys over at the town.”
“Then it didn’t ought to be allowed. You are in a state!”
“Yes; I know without your telling me. What’s under that cover?”
“Roast chicken and bacon, my dear.”
“Oh, I couldn’t touch it, Jane!”
“Now, don’t say that, my dear. People must eat and drink even if they are in trouble; because if they don’t they’re ill. I know what I’ve brought you isn’t as nice as it should be, because it’s all dried up, and now it’s half cold. So be a good boy, same as you used to be years ago when I first knew you. There was no quarrelling with your bread and butter then, and you were always hungry. But, there, I must go. I wouldn’t have master catch me here now for all the millions in the Bank of England. Oh, what a temper he is in, to be sure!”
“Have—have you seen him lately?” asked Aleck, excitedly.