"Beg pawdon, sir, I'm sure, but I wouldn't ha' minded if it wasn't my own old keb. Didn't you spot it?"
"You don't tell me so. How odd!"
"And to think of a brewer's drayman like that gettin' 'old of it. Well——"
Wale put the lid on in case his employer might hear any more of his sentiments.
Philip, leaning back to laugh, for Wale's vocabulary was amusing, if not fit for publication, suddenly realized the queer trick that even the events in the life of an individual have of repeating themselves.
In one day, after an interval of many years, he had been suddenly confronted by personages connected with the period of his sufferings, with the very garments he wore at that time, with the cab in which he drove from Clerkenwell to Hatton Garden. Abingdon had dined with him; Isaacstein had sent him a message; his driver, even, was the cabman who made him a present of two shillings, a most fortunate transaction for Wale, as it led to his selection to look after Philip's London stable.
All who had befriended the forlorn boy in those early days had benefited to an extraordinary degree. The coffee-stall keeper who gave him coffee grounds and crusts, the old clothes man who cut down the price of his first outfit, Mrs. Wrigley, going hopelessly to her toil in a Shepherd's Bush laundry; Mr. Wilson, of Grant & Sons, the kindly jeweler of Ludgate Hill, were each sought out, and either placed in a good business or bounteously rewarded for the services they had rendered. O'Brien, of course, was found a sinecure office at the Mary Anson Home.
As for the doctor, he owed his Harley Street practice to the millionaire's help and patronage.
It is worthy of note that Philip never wore a watch other than that presented to him by the police of the Whitechapel Division.
It was an ordinary English silver lever, and he carried it attached to a knotted bootlace.