"No, no! Leave me, Jenny," said Oscar, and when the girl had gone and he had opened the letter with nervous fingers, he read it with eyes that were wet with tears while his cheeks were flushed with shame.
When he came to the end his heart was beating wildly and he was asking himself if it would not be the brave and manly thing to write at once and say that all this story of his prosperity was a miserable fiction, that he had never been otherwise than wretched, that he was living in a common way among common companions, doing common work which he dare not think of, and that no words could express the secret agony of his soul at having sunk so low. But deep as was the degradation of that bitter hour it was not so deep as that of the following morning when Jenny came lugging his college box up-stairs, and chattering gaily as if she had brought him a fortune.
"The railway man said as 'ow it was as 'eavy as lead, so I give 'im twopence for 'isself--I 'ope I did right, sir."
"Quite right, Jenny. Here's the money. You can go now."
"Can I 'elp ye to unpack it, sir? There ain't no sort o' box as I can't unpack. My! what a long way it must 'a' come!"
"It came from Iceland, Jenny."
"Fancy that now! Pat Looney, the lorry man, 'e come from there, and the neighbors says it's a pity 'e don't go back. They never says that about you, though. 'He's so perlite,' they says."
Oscar allowed the girl to open the box and empty it of its contents, and as she did so she chirped away like the street sparrow that she was, while he sat with the mist of his boyish associations floating up to him from the happy past.
"Well, I never!" she cried, sitting back on her heels as she knelt before the box. "Polonies! And sausages! And pickled tongues! And hams! Why, you won't 'ave to buy nothin' to eat for months! Isn't that lucky now? Just when you're 'out' too! Is it a present?"
"Yes, it is a present, Jenny."