I made an appointment with him, which he failed to keep. Then another. Then another, and another. I lay wait for him in likely places. I stalked him. I caught stray glimpses of him in various haunts. But he always evaded me.
I think old Mrs. Capps got tired of leaning her head out of the third-floor window of No. 2 Chapel Street, and seeing me waiting patiently on the doorstep expectant of Posh.
At length I cornered him (from information received) fairly and squarely at the
Magdala House, a beerhouse in Duke’s Head Street, two minutes’ walk from his lodgings.
I got him on his legs and took him down Rant Score to Bill Harrison’s.
“Now look here,” said I. “What’s the matter? You’ve made appointment after appointment, and kept none of them. Why don’t you wish to see me?”
Posh shuffled his feet on, the sanded bricks. He drank from the measure of “mild beer” (twopenny), for which he will call in preference to any other liquid.
“Tha’ss like this here, master,” said he. “I ha’ had enow o’ folks a comin’ here an’ pickin’ my brains and runnin’ off wi’ my letters and never givin’ me so much as a sixpence.”
“Oho!” I thought. “That’s where the rub is.”
I gave him a trifling guarantee of good faith, and his face brightened up. Gradually I overcame his reserve, and gradually I