"What are you doing here? You look respectable; you're from the country, aren't you?"
Bertie hesitated; he remembered the effect produced by his incautious frankness on Mr. and Mrs. Jenkins.
"Speak up; you have got a tongue, haven't you? What are you doing here? run away from home?"
The lad, giving a sudden twist, freed himself from the gentleman's grasp, and ran off as fast as his legs could carry him. The stranger, puffing at his cigar as he stood under the lamp-post, laughed as he peered after the retreating boy. But Bertie, despite his weariness, still ran on. He dimly wondered, whether he bore about with him some outward sign by which any one could tell he was a runaway. He made up his mind that he would ask no more questions if he ran the risk of meeting such home thrusts in reply.
He wandered onwards till he reached Kensington Gardens, and then the Albert Hall. There was a concert going on, and the place was all lit up. He stared with amazement at the enormous building, imperfectly revealed in the darkness of the night. Carriages and cabs were going to and fro. Some one touched him on the shoulder. It was a gorgeous footman, with powdered hair, in splendid livery. His magnificence dazzled him.
"I say, you boy, do you know Thurloe Square?"
"No, sir."
"What do you mean? are you gettin' at me? You take a message for me to Thurloe Square, and there'll be a bob when you get there."
"But I don't know Thurloe Square; I'm a stranger, sir."
"A stranger, are you? Then what do you mean by standing there, as though you was born just over the way? Get on out of it! I shouldn't be surprised if you was after pockethandkerchiefs;--what's your little lay? I'll tell the policeman to keep an eye on you, telling me you don't know Thurloe Square;--oh yes, I jest dersay!"