“No, very seldom,” replied the Duke. “But he was a great bore! I fear I could never have floored him, for I was not a big fellow, like you, but I own I never thought of doing so. Did you knock him out?”
“Oh, yes!” said Tom cheerfully. “I don’t think he is dead, though. I could not wait to see, of course, but I should not think he could be. And in a way it will be as well if he is not, because they would hang me for it, wouldn’t they?”
“Oh, I don’t suppose it is as bad as that!” Gilly consoled him. “Did you then make your way from Shefford?”
“Yes, and the best of it is he will not know which way I went, and I kept to the woods, and the fields, so all the chaises in the world won’t help him. I thought I would get on the coach for London, and see all the sights there, which he would not let me do, horrid old addle-plot! Only fancy, sir! We drove up from Worthing, and we spent just one night in London, and the only thing he would let me see was St. Paul’s Cathedral! As though I cared for that! Not even the wild beasts at the Exeter Exchange! Of course I knew he would never take me to a theatre, and it was no use trying to give him the bag then, for someone would have been bound to have seen me. But when the perch broke, and such a chance offered, I do think I should have been a regular clodpole not to have seized it! And now—now I haven’t a meg, and it is all for nothing! But one thing issure!—I won’t go tamely home! If I can’t get to London, but very likely I shall think of a way to do so, I shall make for the coast, and sign on a barque as ship’s boy. If there had been any pirates left I should have done that rather even than have gone to London. Though I would like to see the sights, and kick up some larks,” he added wistfully.
“Don’t despair!” said Gilly, much entertained by this ingenuous history. “Perhaps we can contrive that you shall go there.”
An eager face was turned towards him. “Oh, sir, do you think I might indeed? But how?”
“Well, we will think about that presently,” promised the Duke, emerging from the lane on to the Hitchin road. “First, however, we must lay a piece of steak to that eye of yours.”
“Sir, you are a regular Trojan!” Tom said, in a rush of gratitude. “I beg your pardon for not being civil to you at first! I thought you was bound to be like all the rest, jawing and moralizing, but I see you are a bang-up person, and I do not at all mind telling you what my name is! It’s Mamble, Thomas Mamble. Pa is an ironmaster, and we live just outside Kettering. Where do you live, sir?”
“Sometimes in the country, sometimes in London.”
“I wish we did so!” Tom said enviously. “I have never been south of Kettering until they sent me to Worthing. I had the measles, you know, and the doctor said I should go there. I wish it had been Brighton! That would have been something like! Only not with old Snape. You can have no notion what it is like, sir, being Pa’s only son! They will not leave me alone for a minute, nor let me do the least thing I like, and everything is wretched beyond bearing!”