“I suppose that sort of thing is done sometimes, eh?” he said.
“I don’t know, Mr Rowle,” I replied.
“Hum! No, of course you don’t,” he said thoughtfully, after another pinch. “Come along upstairs, my boy, and let’s look at the machine.”
Chapter Fifty Two.
Mr Jabez has a Spasm.
There had been some little dispute about the drawing up of the terms between Hallett and Mr Rowle. The former would not listen to the old gentleman’s proposition that it should be settled by a letter between them, saying that it ought to be a proper legal document, for both their sakes; and the knot was solved, as they did not wish to consult a solicitor, by my proposing to bring Tom Girtley home with me some evening, when the legal training he was undergoing might prove sufficient for the purpose.
It was settled to be so, and a few evenings later, I called in Lincoln’s Inn Fields, at the offices where Tom was now engaged, and he accompanied me to Great Ormond Street.
Mary had had her instructions to have a “high tea” ready for us, and her ideas of delicacies took the form of hot baked potatoes and cold lobsters; and upon these, with shouts of laughter, we made an attack, for it was wonderful in those days what the youthful digestive organs would conquer without fail. Tom Girtley had several times been to my apartments, but I had never introduced him to the Halletts, for there had been too much trouble in connection with Linny’s illness for their rooms to be attractive to a casual visitor.