“Goodness knows,” replied Wallop, with a laugh.
“But I won’t let him do it. I don’t want him to pay my debts. You must give him the money back, Wallop.” Wallop grinned delightedly.
“Oh, quite so. It’s rather likely, when I’ve been waiting for my money the best part of a year, I should decline to receive it when I’ve got the chance! No, my boy, you can settle with Hawkesbury now. You owe him the thirty bob, not me!”
What was I to do? I demanded an explanation of Hawkesbury as soon as he appeared.
“Wallop tells me you’ve paid him the thirty shillings I owed him,” said I.
“Oh, he shouldn’t have told you,” said Hawkesbury, with the meek air of a benevolent man who doesn’t like to hear his own good deeds talked about.
“I wish you hadn’t done it,” said I.
“Oh, you mustn’t think of it,” said he, blandly. “It was only because I heard him threaten to get you into trouble if you didn’t pay him, and I should have been so sorry if that had happened.”
“Thank you, but really I prefer to pay my own debts!”
He laughed as if it was a joke.