Toby Bunce, having succeeded in inducing the kettle to boil by means of sundry bits of wood sparingly applied, his wife Betsy made the tea, while Jacob cut the bread-and-butter.
"I wonder whether Tom will keep his appointment?" said Old Death, as he sipped his tea. "It's a full hour past the time that I told him to be here."
"And we've been a waiting for him till the fire got so low that it took a power of wood to make it burn up again," observed Toby Bunce.
"S'pose it did?" cried his wife. "You know very well that we don't care about any expense when our best friend Mr. Bones is with us," she added, glancing towards Old Death; for the Bunces were amongst the very few of that individual's acquaintances who knew his real name.
"And yet I should think he would not fail," continued Old Death in a musing strain. "His conduct seemed straight-forward and right enough the very first day we agreed to terms; and he even gave me my regulars in a matter that I'd nothing to do with. But it was well for him that he did so; or else he'd have been laid up in lavender for want of bail."
"Bertinshaw and Watkins did it pretty tidy," said Jacob, who was making prodigious inroads upon the bread-and-butter.
"Keep your observations to yourself," growled Old Death in a surly tone. "Remember, I haven't forgot your negligence in losing sight of Tom Rain the other day, when he left the police-office."
"It wasn't my fault," returned the lad, his dark eyes flashing angrily. "I kept lurking about the court after I had been up here to tell you that Dykes had nabbed Mr. Rainford: I saw him go over to the coffee-house soon after he was discharged—I followed him when he went in a coach to Pall Mall—I dogged him back again to Bow Street—and then——"
"And then when the Jewess's case was over, you saw him come out, and you lost sight of him," interrupted Old Death angrily. "But never mind," he added, softening a little: "I will set you to watch him another day when you've nothing better to do, and we will find out all I want to know about him."
"When did you see him last?" inquired Toby Bunce.