In a few moments they became aware that the man with the scar was skulking after them.
“Whoop!” cried Hopton. “Clubs! Clubs!”
With his fellow ’prentices he turned and chased the man, who did not wait their onslaught, but dived into a narrow entry and disappeared. And all the way home Martin was wondering what the baffled ruffian had to do with Mr. Slocum.
CHAPTER THE TWENTY-FOURTH
MR. SLOCUM MOVES AT LAST
Anxious to avoid any repetition of the attack on Mounseer, Martin conducted the old gentleman across Cheapside into Wood Street, intending to go home by way of Aldermanbury and Cripplegate, though it involved a long round. George Hopton accompanied them for some little distance, then he stopped.
“I say, I must go back,” he said, “or Slocum will be in a rage. I don’t know what’s come to him. He seems to have lost his wits. Most of the other goldsmiths have removed their valuables to the Tower, and Slocum has been urged to do the same. But he refuses. ‘Time enough, time enough,’ he says, ‘the Fire is by the river; it may not reach as far as Cheapside.’ ”
“I think he’s wrong,” said Martin. “What’s to stop it?”
“That’s what everybody says. But his answer is that the goods are safer in the vaults than they’d be if he moved them; there are thieves about. That’s true enough; I’ve heard of several shops having been robbed. But though Slocum talks like that he has been packing the stock. At least, I suppose he has; he hasn’t asked for any help from me. He was in the strong-room nearly all day yesterday, alone, and we heard hammering time after time.”