“What did he want the money for; do you know?”
“Bills, I understand; and that the sum I have mentioned will not meet the one-half of those he has out. ’Pon my honour, I am very sorry for Dudley. He will be a beggar before he is ten years older.”
“He is an awful fool,” observed Mr. Stewart.
“So he may be; but folly is not a sin, is it?”
“It is sin’s half-brother, or whole father, or something of the kind, at any rate,” retorted Mr. Stewart; “but here is King’s Cross, and now for Mr. Black,” and so saying the old man sprang as lightly from the compartment as his much younger companion; and, bustling out of the station, hailed a cab, which speedily conveyed the pair to Lincoln’s Inn Fields.
“Where Mr. Black had already been,” Arthur informed them. “He is gone on to Dowgate Hill, where, he told me, any message would find him until one o’clock. Shall I send and ask him to come up?”
“No,” Mr. Stewart decided; “we will follow him.”
“I saw Lord Kemms’ letter in this morning’s Times,” Arthur remarked.
“Yes; his Lordship ought to have a straight waistcoat, and bread-and-water diet for a week, to teach him not to be so hasty,” answered Mr. Stewart. “Black must answer him.”
“He said, he hoped you would leave him to do so,” Arthur replied. “He does not seem to attach much importance to the matter.”