“We’ll show you the way, sir,” says Pomfrett, whose curiosity was perhaps aroused by the sight of the ring.
Now, the Burning Bush had an ill repute as a crimp’s ken; Gamaliel’s was no place for the reputable; and it behooves a schoolmaster to make at least a pretence of piety; wherefore I hung back.
“Oh, be hanged!” said Pomfrett. “I know Gamaliel—he does business at the warehouse. Come along.”
“Ay, ay,” the mariner broke in, “heave ahead, shipmate; never spoil a merry meeting; a tot of rum will set you as brisk as a bee. Why,” says he, “you and me and you—I should say him, but meaning polite—we three, I reckon, will be as thick as thieves before the night’s out. Crack on, shipmates, for the port o’ call.”
And, turning sharp to the left, down a narrow passage, we came to the Burning Bush, a low-browed tavern with small latticed windows, that gave no hint of the great extent of the rambling premises behind them, and entered the sanded parlour, where Mr John Gamaliel was standing with his back to a bright fire. A little, thin, eager man was John Gamaliel; his nose was hooked, his fingers crooked inward like a sailor’s (a sailor he had been), his body had a forward droop, like a fish-hook.
“What! Mr Pomfrett?” said Gamaliel. “And Mr Winter, our notable instructor of youth? And Mr Dawkins, too—I had no notion you were acquainted, gentlemen.”
“Well, we are, ye see, Hookey,” returned Mr Dawkins, “so set glasses round, and smart, my lad.”
“Why, now,” said Hookey Gamaliel, bustling with glasses and bottles, “here’s a singular coincidence—you’re dropping in like this, Mr Pomfrett, and very friendly too, for only this morning I was saying to Mr Dawkins here, I must pay a visit to your good uncle, Mr Pomfrett, to show him a little curiosity of the sea. It might be worth his while to look at it.”
At these words, Mr Dawkins fixed a sudden, frowning gaze upon the speaker, who returned his look with a steady composure. It was as though Mr Dawkins were making a strenuous attempt to clear the fumes of liquor from his head, in order to enter into the conversation.
“And very curiously, too,” the Jew went on, with his eyes still upon the face of Mr Dawkins, upon which a light of understanding was beginning to dawn, “the article in question is the property of my friend, Mr James Dawkins, here, who——”