“I thought you did. Hands look grubby enough.”
Tom glanced at his hands, and saw that they were as rough and red as his cousin’s were white and delicate.
“I help uncle do all sorts of things,” he said quietly, “and sometimes I garden.”
“And wish yourself back at Mornington Crescent, I’ll bet tuppence.”
“I haven’t yet,” said Tom bluntly.
“No; you always were an ungrateful beggar,” said Sam in a contemptuous tone. “But that’s about all you were fit for—sort of gardener’s boy.”
Tom felt a curious sensation tingling in his veins, and his head was hot, for times had altered now, and he was not quite the same lad as the one who had submitted to be tyrannised over in town. He was about to utter some angry retort, but he checked himself.
“I won’t quarrel with him,” he said to himself; and just then Mrs Fidler appeared with a covered dish, which she placed before the visitor.
“Thankye,” he said shortly. “Take the cover away with you.”
There was always a line or two—anxious-looking lines—upon Mrs Fidler’s forehead; now five or six appeared, and her eyebrows suddenly grew closer together, and her lips tightened into a thin line, as she took off the cover, and then went in a very dignified way from the room.