“I am sorry things are so bad with you, old man. You must come and dine and talk them over.”
Mr. Wimple looked him earnestly in the face.
“I don’t like to come,” he said in a half-ashamed, half-pathetic voice; “I behaved so badly to you about that thirty pounds; but luck was against me.”
“Never mind, you shall make it all right when luck is with you,” Walter answered cheerfully, determined to forget all unpleasant bygones. “Why not come to-night? we shall be alone.”
Mr. Wimple shook his head.
“No, not to-night,” he said; “I am not well, and I am going down to the country till Wednesday; it will do me good.” A little smile hovered round his mouth as he added, “some nice people in Hampshire have asked me to stay with them.”
“In Hampshire. Whereabouts in Hampshire?”
There was a certain hesitation in Mr. Wimple’s manner as he answered, “You don’t know them, and I don’t suppose you ever heard of the place, Walter; it is called Liphook.”
“Liphook? Why, of course I know it. It is on the Portsmouth line; we have a cottage, left us by my wife’s aunt only last year, in the same direction, only rather nearer town. How long are you going to stay there?”
“Till Wednesday. I will come and dine with you on Thursday, if you will have me.”