“Humph! you had no money, eh?”
“No, sir; nothing but thrippence-a’penny, which mother gave me afore I started, when she wished me good-bye. She was sorry as how she could give me nothing more; and so I couldn’t pay the fare, and had no ticket.”
“So, my joker, you got on the train without one at all!” said the Captain, interrupting him. “Do you know that was really cheating the railway company?”
“I knows it, sir,” replied Dick Allsop, who had better now be called by his own proper name, looking down as if ashamed of what he had done. “I knows it’s wrong; but, sir, I couldn’t help it, as there was no other way I seed of getting to Porchmouth.”
“But, why didn’t you jump into the carriage like a Christian, as I said just now?” observed the Captain. “Eh?”
Dick seemed amused by this question.
“Does yer think, sir, the porters would ha’ let me if they’d seed me a-trying it on?” said he, with a radiant grin that lit up his face, quite changing its expression. “Not if they, knowed it!”
“Perhaps not,” agreed the Captain, nonplussed by the lad’s logic and knowledge of human nature. “No, I don’t think they would.”
“No, sir; that they wouldn’t,” exclaimed the runaway triumphantly, as if he knew all about that matter at any rate. “So, sir, I waits down by the side o’ the line, where I lays hid, sir, without nobody a-seeing me; and then, jist as the train was started and quite clear o’ the station, a-going into the tunnel as ain’t fur off, as yer know, sir—?”
“Yes, I know the line, my lad,” said Captain Dresser. “I ought to!”