Time passed away, as time is wont to do, and it seemed as if Tommy Bogey had forgotten to carry out his determination. From that day forward he never referred to it, and the few friends to whom he had mentioned it supposed that he had given up the idea altogether as impracticable.
They did not know the mettle that Tommy was made of. After maturely considering the matter, he had made up his mind to delay carrying out his plan until Bax should have time to write home and acquaint him with his whereabouts. Meanwhile, he would set himself to make and save up money by every means in his power, for he had sense enough to know that a moneyless traveller must be a helpless creature.
Peekins was permanently received into Sandhill Cottage as page-in-buttons, in which capacity he presented a miserably attenuated figure, but gave great satisfaction. Tommy and he continued good friends; the former devoting as much of his leisure time to the latter as he could spare. He had not much to spare, however, for he had, among other things, set himself energetically to the study of arithmetic and navigation under the united guidance of old Jeph and Bluenose.
Lucy Burton paid a long visit to Mrs Foster, and roamed over the Sandhills day after day with her friend Amy, until her father, the missionary, came and claimed her and carried her back to Ramsgate. During Lucy’s stay, Guy Foster remained at the cottage, busily engaged in various ways, but especially in making himself agreeable to Lucy, in which effort he seemed to be very successful.
When the latter left, he suddenly discovered that he was wasting his time sadly, and told his mother that he meant to look out for something to do. With this end in view he set out for London, that mighty hive of industry and idleness into which there is a ceaseless flow of men who “want something to do,” and of men who “don’t know what to do.”
And what of Denham, Crumps, and Company during this period?
The rats in and around Red Wharf Lane could have told you, had they been able to speak, that things prospered with that firm. These jovial creatures, that revelled so luxuriously in the slime and mud and miscellaneous abominations of that locality, could have told you that, every morning regularly, they were caught rioting in the lane and sent squealing out of it, by a boy in blue (the successor of poor Peekins) who opened the office and prepared it for the business of the day; that about half an hour later they, the rats, were again disturbed by the arrival of the head-clerk, closely followed by the juniors, who were almost as closely followed by Crumps—he being a timid old man who stood in awe of his senior partner; that, after this, they had a good long period of comparative quiet, during which they held a riotous game of hide-and-seek across the lane and down among sewers and dust holes, and delightfully noisome and fetid places of a similar character; interrupted at irregular intervals by a vagrant street boy, or a daring cat, or an inquisitive cur; that this game was stopped at about ten o’clock by the advent of Mr Denham, who generally gave them, the rats, a smile of recognition as he passed to his office, concluding, no doubt, by a natural process of ratiocination, that they were kindred spirits, because they delighted in bad smells and filthy garbage, just as he (Denham) rejoiced in Thames air and filthy lucre.
One fine morning, speaking from a rat’s point of view, when the air was so thick and heavy and moist that it was difficult to see more than a few yards in any direction, Denham came down the lane about half-an-hour later than usual, with a brisk step and an unusually smiling countenance.
Peekins’ successor relieved him of his hat, topcoat, and umbrella, and one of the clerks brought him the letters. Before opening these he shouted—