“I was thinking of falling bounce on my old schoolmate, and putting Old English hospitality to the proof,” Mr. Smith meditated. “But it’s late. Yes, and that confounded glass! No, we’ll bide with you, Mr. Carpenter. I’ll send my card across to Mart Tinman to-morrow, and set him agog at his breakfast.”
Mr. Van Diemen Smith waved his hand for Crickledon to lead the way.
Hereupon Ned Crummins looked up from the card he had been turning over and over, more and more like one arriving at a condemnatory judgment of a fish.
“I can’t go and give my master a card instead of his glass,” he remarked.
“Yes, that reminds me; and I should like to know what you meant by bringing that glass away from Mr. Tinman’s house at night,” said Mr. Smith. “If I’m to pay for it, I’ve a right to know. What’s the meaning of moving it at night? Eh, let’s hear. Night’s not the time for moving big glasses like that. I’m not so sure I haven’t got a case.”
“If you’ll step round to my master along o’ me, sir,” said Crummins, “perhaps he’ll explain.”
Crummins was requested to state who his master was, and he replied, “Phippun and Company;” but Mr. Smith positively refused to go with him.
“But here,” said he, “is a crown for you, for you’re a civil fellow. You’ll know where to find me in the morning; and mind, I shall expect Phippun and Company to give me a very good account of their reason for moving a big looking-glass on a night like this. There, be off.”
The crown-piece in his hand effected a genial change in Crummins’ disposition to communicate. Crickledon spoke to him about the glass; two or three of the others present jogged him. “What did Mr. Tinman want by having the glass moved so late in the day, Ned? Your master wasn’t nervous about his property, was he?”
“Not he,” said Crummins, and began to suck down his upper lip and agitate his eyelids and stand uneasily, glimmering signs of the setting in of the tide of narration.