“Now, ma’am, look here. I’ve come for my brother. Don’t be alarmed. No danger as yet. But, mind! if you attempt to conceal him from his lawful brother, I’ll summon here the myrmidons of the law.”
Mrs. Sockley showed a serious face.
“You know his habits, Mr. Cogglesby; and one doesn’t go against any one of his whimsies, or there’s consequences: but the house is open to you, sir. I don’t wish to hide him.”
Andrew accepted this intelligent evasion of Tom Cogglesby’s orders as sufficient, and immediately proceeded upstairs. A door shut on the first landing. Andrew went to this door and knocked. No answer. He tried to open it, but found that he had been forestalled. After threatening to talk business through the key-hole, the door was unlocked, and Old Tom appeared.
“So! now you’re dogging me into the country. Be off; make an appointment. Saturday’s my holiday. You know that.”
Andrew pushed through the doorway, and, by way of an emphatic reply and a silencing one, delivered a punch slap into Old Tom’s belt.
“Confound you, Nan!” said Old Tom, grimacing, but friendly, as if his sympathies had been irresistibly assailed.
“It’s done, Tom! I’ve done it. Won my bet, now,” Andrew exclaimed. “The women—poor creatures! What a state they’re in. I pity ’em.”
Old Tom pursed his lips, and eyed his brother incredulously, but with curious eagerness.
“Oh, Lord! what a face I’ve had to wear!” Andrew continued, and while he sank into a chair and rubbed his handkerchief over his crisp hair, Old Tom let loose a convinced and exulting, “ha! ha!”