“Yes,” said I, ready to follow up this lead, “his manner’s against him, perhaps, but he’s a very good fellow at bottom.”
“Besides,” said Hawkesbury, “he really has had great disadvantages. He has no friend at all in London, except Batchelor.”
This was flattering, certainly, and naturally enough I looked sheepish.
“I beg your pardon,” said Hawkesbury, suddenly perceiving his error, “I meant that he has very few friends at all; isn’t that so, Batchelor?”
“Yes,” said I, “very few.”
“Wasn’t he in a grocer’s shop, or some place of the kind, before he came to us?” asked Doubleday.
“Yes,” I answered.
“No wonder he’s a rough lot,” said Whipcord. “I should have thought his governor might have done better for him than that.”
“But,” I said, feeling flurried by all this, and hardly knowing what I said, “he hasn’t got a father—that is—I mean—”
“What do you mean?” asked Flanagan.