As he spoke he took out a great yellow silk handkerchief, and from underneath that, fitting pretty tightly in the hat, a damp-looking paper parcel, that proved to contain a couple of pounds of pork sausages, which Mary bore away, and returned directly with a kettle of hot water and a long churchwarden clay pipe, which Mr Rowle proceeded to fill from my tobacco-jar, lit, sat bolt-upright in his chair, and began to smoke.
All the intervening years seemed to have slipped away as I saw the old man sitting there, a wonderfully exact counterpart of Mr Jabez in shabby clothes; and, as his eyes once more wandered round the place, I half expected to see him get up and go all over the house, smoking in each room, and mentally making his inventory of the goods under his charge.
I went to a little cellaret, got out the glasses, spirit-stand, and sugar, and mixed the old man a steaming tumbler, which he took, nodded, and sipped with great satisfaction. Then, puffing contentedly away at his pipe, he said:
“Not all your own, is it?” And his eyes swept over the furniture.
“Yes, to be sure,” I said, laughing at his question, for I took a good deal of pride in my rooms, which were really well furnished.
“You’ve grow’d quite a swell, young ’un,” he said at last; and then stopped smoking suddenly. “I ain’t no right here,” he said. “I hope you don’t mind the pipe.”
“I’m going to have a cigar with you presently,” I said, laughing, “only we’ll have some supper first.”
“Only fancy,” he said; “just a bit of a slip as you was when you made up your mind to cut, and now grow’d up. I should have liked to have seen what come between. You are glad to see me, then?”
“Glad? Of course,” I cried; and then Mary came bustling in to lay the cloth.
“She’s altered, too,” said the old man, who went on smoking away placidly. “Got crummier; and she don’t speak so sharp. Think o’ you two living in the same house.”