Mr. Stalybridge hesitated, but after looking very hard at the Duke for a moment or two, he took the hand, saying, however: “You go too fast, young man! I said if! ”
The Duke smiled at him understandingly. “Of course!”
“And I don’t want to see the young rascal!” said Mr. Stalybridge angrily. “I only hope it may be a lesson to him, and if you are a relative of his I beg you will take better care of him in the future!”
“I shall not let him out of my sight,” promised the Duke. “And now perhaps we had best visit Mr. Oare.”
It seemed for a time that Mr. Stalybridge was going to draw back, but after the Duke had artlessly suggested that nothing should be said of the ginger-beer bottle he consented to go with him, and to withdraw his charge against Tom. By the time this had been accomplished, and all the other formalities necessary for Tom’s release fulfilled, the day was considerably advanced, and the Duke a good deal the poorer. But he bore Tom off in triumph, and that without having recourse to the use of his own title and consequence, a circumstance which pleased him so much that he quite forgave Tom for his outrageous behaviour. To have outwitted a band of kidnappers, wrested a potential felon from the hands of the Law, and dealt successfully with so inimical a gentleman as Mr. Stalybridge, all within twenty-four hours, gave him a much better idea of himself than ever he had had before. There had been times when he had regretted embarking on his odyssey, but although his efforts on Tom’s behalf had been extremely exhausting, and although his money and his stock of clean linen were both running low, he no longer regretted it. He had made an interesting discovery: the retainers who sped to anticipate his every need, and guarded him from all contact with the common world, might be irksome at times, or at times a comfort to him, but he knew now that they were no more necessary to him than his high title: plain Mr. Dash of Nowhere in Particular could fend for himself.
So it was with the hint of a smile in his eyes that he bade Tom, over a sustaining dinner, render an account of himself.
“Well, I had not enough ready on me to pay the shot here,” explained Tom.
“But you knew that I had locked my money in my dressing-table.”
“Of course I did, but a pretty fellow I should be to think of robbing you!” said Tom indignantly.
“A pretty fellow you were to think of robbing Mr. Stalybridge,” said the Duke quizzically.