“Yes, if you like,” said the young man, leaning forward, and gazing full in the manager’s face; “send for one if you like. But you don’t like, Robert Hallam. There, I’m a man of few words. I’ve suffered a deal just through being true to my mate, and now you’ve got to make it up to me.”
“You scoun—”
“Sh! That’ll do. Just please yourself, my fine fellow; only, if you don’t play fair towards the man who let things go against him without a word, I shall just go round the town and say—”
“Silence, you scoundrel!” cried Hallam fiercely; and he caught his unpleasant visitor by the arm.
Just then James Thickens entered, as quietly as a shadow, taking everything in at a glance, but without evincing any surprise.
“Think yourself lucky, sir,” continued Hallam aloud, “that I do not have you locked up. Mr Thickens, see this man off the premises.”
Then, in a whisper that his visitor alone could hear, and with a meaning look:
“Be quiet and go. Come to my rooms to-night.”