"Pardon?" inquired Mr Cleave, who had sat through all the clamour deep in a bilious-looking periodical called The Total Abstainer. Mr Cleave, it should be added, was a little deaf. As, on looking up, he found Miss Bird scowling at him, he concluded that she had addressed him.
"--Bread and water for a week!" shouted Miss Bird, irritably. She hated having to repeat anything, and the case was made worse in Mr Cleave's case by the defect in his hearing.
"Water?" Mr Cleave nodded and smiled. "Certainly--plenty of water. Are you an abstainer, sir?" he concluded, turning to Jim, whose name he had not properly caught when they were introduced.
"Not I," replied Jim heartily.
Mr Cleave blinked severely.
"You sometimes fall into deadly sin by polluting your lips with alcoholic liquor?" he inquired.
"I occasionally have a drink," acknowledged Jim.
Gradually a very pained and shocked expression stole over Mr Cleave's cadaverous countenance. For Mr Cleave, as need hardly be explained, was a fanatic on the liquor question--the kind of ill-balanced enthusiast that does his cause more harm than good by his unbridled and immoderate denunciations of the evil he wishes to abolish. He gazed upon Jim with wonder and shame, and then, deeming him too hardened to be affected by remonstrance, turned for comfort to the pages of The Total Abstainer, and particularly to that part where notorious cases of drunkenness were set down under the kind, Christian-like heading of "OUR PILLORY."
While these remarks were being passed, Mr Jefferson, who had dressed for the theatre before he went to meet Dora, had been turning over the pages of a magazine and occasionally stealing a glance at Jim. For he was rather puzzled at finding the latter at No. 9. He was--it must be remembered--entirely ignorant concerning Jim's identity. He had seen Jim before, it was true, when visiting the Exhibition with Dora and her sister, and had looked diligently in the paper for several days afterwards to see what sort of punishment had been meted out to the turbulent youth, but had failed to glean any information there, thanks to the absolute silence Koko's press friends had maintained on the subject.
So, gradually, the incident faded out of Mr Jefferson's mind, and he had forgotten all about it when he entered Mr Maybury's house on this particular evening, to find himself face to face with the disturber of the peace whose toes he had trodden on some ten days since--and whose pardon he had so unwisely omitted to beg.