“Ye’re too inquisitive,” said Bax, drawing Tommy towards him, and sitting down on a chair, so that the boy’s face might be on a level with his. “No doubt Guy will explain it to you in the morning. I say, Tommy, I have sometimes wondered whether I could depend on the friendship which you so often profess for me.”
The boy’s face flushed, and he looked for a moment really hurt.
“Tutts, Tommy, you’re gettin’ thin-skinned. I do but jest.”
“Well, jest or no jest,” said the boy, not half pleased, “you know very well that nothing could ever make me turn my back on you.”
“Are you sure?” said Bax, smiling. “Suppose, now, that I was to do something very bad to you, something unkind, or that looked unkind—what then?”
“In the first place you couldn’t do that, and, in the second place, if you did I’d like you just as well.”
“Ay, but suppose,” continued Bax, in a jocular strain, “that what I did was very bad.”
“Well, let’s hear what you call very bad.”
Bax paused as if to consider, then he said: “Suppose, now, that I were to go off suddenly to some far part of the world for many years without so much as saying good-bye to ye, what would you think?”
“I’d find out where you had gone to, and follow you, and pitch into you when I found you,” said Tommy stoutly.