He disengaged himself from me, firmly but gently. “You mean well, sir,” he said, “but I have given up the drink.”
Evidently he would have been rid of me, but a literary man, scenting material for his stockpot, is not easily shaken off. I asked after the old folks, and if they were still stopping with him.
“Yes,” he said, “for the present. Of course, a man can’t be expected to keep people for ever; so many mouths to fill is hard work these times, and everybody sponges on a man just because he’s good-natured.”
“And how are you getting on?” I asked.
“Tolerably well, thank you, sir. The Lord provides for His servants,” he replied with a smug smile. “I have got a little shop now in the Commercial Road.”
“Whereabouts?” I persisted. “I would like to call and see you.”
He gave me the address reluctantly, and said he would esteem it a great pleasure if I would honour him by a visit, which was a palpable lie.
The following afternoon I went. I found the place to be a pawnbroker’s shop, and from all appearances he must have been doing a very brisk business. He was out himself attending a temperance committee, but his old father was behind the counter, and asked me inside. Though it was a chilly day there was no fire in the parlour, and the two old folks sat one each side of the empty hearth, silent and sad. They seemed little more pleased to see me than their son, but after a while Mrs. Burridge’s natural garrulity asserted itself, and we fell into chat.
I asked what had become of his sister-in-law, the lady with the swollen face.
“I couldn’t rightly tell you, sir,” answered the old lady, “she ain’t livin’ with us now. You see, sir,” she continued, “John’s got different notions to what ’e used to ’ave. ’E don’t cotten much to them as ain’t found grace, and poor Jane never did ’ave much religion!”