"Not much—eh! brother William John?" Anthony threw up a puzzled look. "Not much baggage—I see that—" he exclaimed; "and, Lord be thanked! no trunks. Aha, my dear"—he turned to Rhoda—"you remember your lesson, do ye? Now, mark me—I'll remember you for it. Do you know, my dear," he said to Rhoda confidentially, "that sixpenn'orth of chaff which I made the cabman pay for—there was the cream of it!—that was better than Peruvian bark to my constitution. It was as good to me as a sniff of sea-breeze and no excursion expenses. I'd like another, just to feel young again, when I'd have backed myself to beat—cabmen? Ah! I've stood up, when I was a young 'un, and shut up a Cheap Jack at a fair. Circulation's the soul o' chaff. That's why I don't mind tackling cabmen—they sit all day, and all they've got to say is 'rat-tat,' and they've done. But I let the boys roar. I know what I was when a boy myself. I've got devil in me—never you fear—but it's all on the side of the law. Now, let's off, for the gentlemen are starin' at you, which won't hurt ye, ye know, but makes me jealous."
Before the party moved away from the platform, a sharp tussle took place between Anthony and the farmer as to the porterage of the bulky bag; but it being only half-earnest, the farmer did not put out his strength, and Anthony had his way.
"I rather astonished you, brother William John," he said, when they were in the street.
The farmer admitted that he was stronger than he looked.
"Don't you judge by appearances, that's all," Anthony remarked, setting down the bag to lay his finger on one side of his nose for impressiveness.
"Now, there we leave London Bridge to the right, and we should away to the left, and quiet parts." He seized the bag anew. "Just listen. That's the roaring of cataracts of gold you hear, brother William John. It's a good notion, ain't it? Hark!—I got that notion from one of your penny papers. You can buy any amount for a penny, now-a-days—poetry up in a corner, stories, tales o' temptation—one fellow cut his lucky with his master's cash, dashed away to Australia, made millions, fit to be a lord, and there he was! liable to the law! and everybody bowing their hats and their heads off to him, and his knees knocking at the sight of a policeman—a man of a red complexion, full habit of body, enjoyed his dinner and his wine, and on account of his turning white so often, they called him—'sealing-wax and Parchment' was one name; 'Carrots and turnips' was another; 'Blumonge and something,' and so on. Fancy his having to pay half his income in pensions to chaps who could have had him out of his town or country mansion and popped into gaol in a jiffy. And found out at last! Them tales set you thinking. Once I was an idle young scaramouch. But you can buy every idea that's useful to you for a penny. I tried the halfpenny journals. Cheapness ain't always profitable. The moral is, Make your money, and you may buy all the rest."
Discoursing thus by the way, and resisting the farmer's occasional efforts to relieve him of the bag, with the observation that appearances were deceiving, and that he intended, please his Maker, to live and turn over a little more interest yet, Anthony brought them to Mrs. Wicklow's house. Mrs. Wicklow promised to put them into the track of the omnibuses running toward Dahlia's abode in the Southwest, and Mary Ann Wicklow, who had a burning desire in her bosom to behold even the outside shell of her friend's new grandeur, undertook very disinterestedly to accompany them. Anthony's strict injunction held them due at a lamp-post outside Boyne's Bank, at half-past three o'clock in the afternoon.
"My love to Dahly," he said. "She was always a head and shoulders over my size. Tell her, when she rolls by in her carriage, not to mind me. I got my own notions of value. And if that Mr. Ayrton of hers 'll bank at Boyne's, I'll behave to him like a customer. This here's the girl for my money." He touched Rhoda's arm, and so disappeared.
The farmer chided her for her cold manner to her uncle, murmuring aside to her: "You heard what he said." Rhoda was frozen with her heart's expectation, and insensible to hints or reproof. The people who entered the omnibus seemed to her stale phantoms bearing a likeness to every one she had known, save to her beloved whom she was about to meet, after long separation.
She marvelled pityingly at the sort of madness which kept the streets so lively for no reasonable purpose. When she was on her feet again, she felt for the first time, that she was nearing the sister for whom she hungered, and the sensation beset her that she had landed in a foreign country. Mary Ann Wicklow chattered all the while to the general ear. It was her pride to be the discoverer of Dahlia's terrace.