“Lordy, young chub, she were stretched out as stiff as a corpse when I loped off, and no one knowing what to do to bring her to her senses. Ah, and mighty peevy I thought myself, to hit on the notion of coming to this ken—not knowing as you had bespoke all the rooms afore me.”
His bright face shifted to Sir Richard’s unpromising countenance. “Unfortunate!” said Sir Richard politely.
“Ah, now!” wheedled Mr Yarde, “you wouldn’t go for to out-jockey Jimmy Yarde! Lordy, it’s all of eleven o’clock, and the light gone. What’s to stop your doubling up with the young shaver?”
“If your honour would condescend to allow the young gentleman to sleep in the spare bed in your honour’s chamber?” interpolated the landlord in an ingratiating tone.
“No,” said Sir Richard. “I am an extremely light sleeper, and my nephew snores.” Ignoring an indignant gasp from Pen, he turned to Mr Yarde. “Do you snore?” he asked.
Jimmy grinned. “Not me! I sleep like a baby, so help me!”
“Then you,” said Sir Richard, “may share my room.”
“Done!” said Jimmy promptly. “Spoke like a rare gager, guv’nor, which I knew you was. Damme, if I don’t drain a clank to your very good health!”
Resigning himself to the inevitable, Sir Richard nodded to the landlord, and bade Jimmy draw up a chair.
Not having boarded the stage-coach when Pen had announced Sir Richard to be her tutor, Jimmy apparently accepted her new relationship without question. He spoke of her to Sir Richard as “your nevvy,” drank both their healths in gin-and-water bespoken by Sir Richard, and seemed to be inclined to make a night of it. He became rather loquacious over his second glass of daffy, and made several mysterious references to Files, and those engaged on the Dub-lay, and the Kidd. Various embittered strictures on Flash Culls led Sir Richard to infer that he had lately been working in partnership with persons above his own social standing, and did not mean to repeat the experience.