“Yes, sir.”
“Well, I am surprised,” he exclaimed. “Lister’s a lucky dog. Why, I see, you dog!” he said, in a bantering way, “you carry the love-letters backwards and forwards.”
“Oh no, sir, I—”
“Hush, hush, hush! Not a word. I won’t listen to you. Don’t betray your master’s secrets, my lad. You’re a confidential messenger, and must clap a seal upon your lips.”
“But, sir, I—”
“No, no. How much?” he said, with mock severity. “Don’t speak, don’t interrupt me; I’m reckoning up. Let me see—let me see—ha! that’s it exactly. There we are,” he continued, fastening down a note and handing it to me. “Run along, my young Mercury, and if I were you I should make cabby drive me to Oxford Street for a shilling, and save the other. That’s the way to grow rich. Off you go. Take care of this.”
He thrust a letter into my hands, and almost pushed me out of the room, so that I had not time to speak; and before I had quite recovered from my confusion, I was in the cab, and heard the boy clerk say:
“Put him down at Oxford Circus.”
Then the wheels began to rattle, and the door to jangle, and I sit feeling angry with myself for saying so much about Mr Lister and Miss Carr, as I recalled William Revitts’ advice, often given, to “let other people talk while you make notes.”
The thought of where I was going soon drove my interview with Mr Brandsheim out of my head, and getting out of the cab at the Circus, I made the best of my way to the great imposing house in Westmouth Street, rang, and asked to see Miss Carr.