As for Loper, Larrabel, Crackaby, Stickler, and Company—feeling that it would be improper to remain after the host and hostess were gone; that it would be equally wrong to offer to go with them, and quite inappropriate to witness the home-coming,—they took themselves off, but each resolved to flutter unseen in the neighbourhood until he, or she, could make quite sure that the prodigal had returned.
It was to one of the lowest of the common lodging-houses that Sam Twitter the younger had resorted on the night he had been discovered by Number 666. That day he had earned sixpence by carrying a carpet bag to a railway station. One penny he laid out in bread, one penny in cheese. With the remaining fourpence he could purchase the right to sit in the lodging-house kitchen, and to sleep in a bed in a room with thirty or forty homeless ones like himself.
On his way to this abode of the destitute, he was overtaken by a huge man with a little bit of blue ribbon in his button-hole.
“Hallo! young feller,” exclaimed the man, “you’re the chap that was livin’ wi’ Ned Frog the night I called to see ’im—eh! Sam Twitter, ain’t you?”
“Yes,” said young Sam, blushing scarlet with alarm at the abruptness of the question. “Yes, I am. T–Twitter is my name. You’re the man that gave him the Bible, are you not, whom he turned out of his house for tryin’ to speak to him about his soul?”
“The same, young feller. That’s me, an’ Reggie North is my name. He’d ’ave ’ad some trouble to turn me out once, though, but I’ve given up quarrellin’ and fightin’ now, havin’ enlisted under the banner of the Prince of Peace,” replied the man, who was none other than our Bible-salesman, the man who contributed the memorable speech—“Bah!” and “Pooh!” at the Gospel-temperance meeting. “Where are you going?”
Sam, who never could withhold information or retain a secret if asked suddenly, gave the name of the common lodging-house to which he was bound.
“Well, I’m going there too, so come along.”
Sam could not choose but go with the man. He would rather have been alone, but could not shake him off.
Entering, they sat down at a table together near the kitchen fire, and North, pulling out of his pocket a small loaf, cut it in two and offered Sam half.