The energetic driver here struck his fist so violently on the bed as to cause his wounded side an acute twinge of pain. It had scarcely passed away when the door opened and Will Garvie himself entered.
“Well, Jack,” he said, going up to his friend’s couch and taking his hand, “how d’you feel now—better?”
The frank open countenance of the young man—albeit begrimed with smoke, and his clear laughing blue eyes, were such a flat contradiction to the charge which had been made against him that John looked up in his face and laughed.
“Well, you must be better, if that’s the way you answer me!”
“Oh, I’m all right,” said John, quietly; “leastwise I’m on the rails agin, an’ only shunted on to a sidin’ to be overhauled and repaired a bit. You’ve heard the noos, I fancy?”
“What of Bob’s appointment?” said Will, glancing at Loo; for he knew that anything that was for Bob’s advantage gave her intense delight, and he liked to watch her countenance in such circumstances—“of course I’ve heard of that. Moreover, I’ve bin to the locomotive superintendent and got leave to go over with him to-morrow and show him through the works, along with any of his family that might want to go. I made a special request for this, thinkin’ that mayhap—”
He looked pointedly at Loo, and Loo looked pointedly at the pinafore which suddenly claimed her undivided attention. Bob, before Will could finish his sentence, broke in with—
“Now, ain’t that a su’cumstance? w’y, we was just talkin’ of havin’ mother over to see the works, an’ lettin’ her be convinced by her own eyes that there is a hammer there of five ton weight, drove by steam, an’ a pair o’ scissors as can cut cold iron an inch thick. You’ll go mother, won’t you?”
“Well, I dessay it would be amoosin’; yes, I’ll go, Bob, if father’s better.”
Accordingly, much to Will Garvie’s disappointment it was arranged that Mrs Marrot was to accompany him and Bob to the great railway “Works” on the following day.