Chapter Thirty Two.
Success and Future Plans.
Punctual to the minute Zook presented himself to Mrs Butt next morning and demanded audience.
Mrs Butt had been forewarned of the impending visit, and, although she confessed to some uncomfortable feelings in respect of infection and dirt, received him with a gracious air.
“You’ve come to breakfast, I understand?”
“Well, I believe I ’ave,” answered the little man, with an involuntary glance at his dilapidated clothes; “’avin’ been inwited—unless,” he added, somewhat doubtfully, “the inwite came in a dream.”
“You may go in and clear up that point for yourself,” said the landlady, as she ushered the poor man into the parlour, where he was almost startled to find an amiable gentleman waiting to receive him.
“Come along, Zook, I like punctuality. Are you hungry?”
“’Ungry as a ’awk, sir,” replied Zook, glancing at the table and rubbing his hands, for there entered his nostrils delicious odours, the causes of which very seldom entered his throat. “W’y, sir, I know’d you was a gent, from the wery first!”
“I have at least entered my native shell,” said Charlie, with a laugh. “Sit down. We’ve no time to waste. Now what’ll you have? Coffee, tea, pork-sausage, ham and egg, buttered toast, hot rolls. Just help yourself, and fancy you’re in the lodging-house at your own table.”