“Mind?” said Mr Halgrove. “I’m delighted if you are. You prefer solitude, so do I. Or perhaps you’ve been a naughty boy, and are left behind for your sins.”
“I’ve stayed behind because I didn’t want to go,” said Percy.
“Well,” said Mr Halgrove, “I am sure your relatives are the sufferers by your decision. By the way, one of the things I came to see your father about was to ask him to help me out of a money difficulty. I’ve just landed from America, and my remittances are not here to meet me. Consequently I am in the ridiculous position of not being able to pay for the luxury of an hotel. But I understand there are nice clean railway-arches at Victoria, and that crusts are frequently to be met with in the gutters if one keeps his eye open.”
Percy was perplexed.
“Do you mean you’re really hard up?” said he, “because if you really are, of course you’d better put up here.”
“But I may be a fraud, you know. I may rob the house and murder you in your bed,” said his uncle, “and that would be a pity.”
“I’ll take my chance of that,” said Percy. And so it happened that the house in Clarges Street had a visitor on the last night of Percy’s lonely month. The boy and his uncle began the evening with a great deal of suspicion and mutual aversion. But it wore off as the hours passed. Mr Halgrove had a fund of stories to tell, and the boy was a good listener; and when at last they adjourned to bed they were on friendly terms.
Percy, however, took the precaution to take away the front-door key, so that the visitor could not abscond from the house during the night without his knowledge. The precaution was unnecessary. Mr Halgrove rang his bell for shaving water at ten next morning with the confidence of one who had lived in the house all his life. A few hours later the travellers arrived in London.