As he walked along, he thought over the information which Tom had given him.
“What a scoundrel Simpson is!” he said to himself. “He might at least have taken care of poor Thatcher’s family. Now he has actually turned the boy out of his shop, depriving him of his living. There would be small chance of his doing anything for me if I hadn’t a hold upon him. I think I may be able to persuade him that it will be for his interest to provide for me.”
He walked on, till he stood opposite the fine mansion of the man he sought.
“So John Simpson lives here, and I have no roof to cover me. The wicked do prosper sometimes, it appears. Well, I’ll pull the bell, and see if he knows me.”
John Simpson was sitting in the same room in which he had had his interview with Tom.
He was ill at ease, for Tom’s questioning had stirred up unpleasant thoughts in the mind of the rich man. He was almost sorry that he had discharged Tom from his employment. He knew very well that Tom was popular in the village, as his father had been before him, and that the townspeople would take sides with him. Again, everybody knew the relations which had existed between him and the boy’s father, and he foresaw that he would be considered mean in thus treating the son of an old comrade. Yet he felt so irritated with Tom that he was not prepared as yet to recall his hasty words.
“I’ll let him shift for himself for awhile,” he decided. “It may teach him a lesson, and cure him of his impertinence to me.”
At this moment the bell rang.
“Very likely the boy has come back to beg that I will take him on again,” thought the rich man complacently, and he smiled in anticipation of the triumph this would afford him.
But he did not know Tom, or he would never have thought of this. Our hero was poor, but he had plenty of self-respect and proper pride. He would have humiliated himself if he saw no other way of saving his mother and sister from privation, but not until he had tried earnestly to find employment elsewhere.