“Oh, but you know, he’ll be looking for me; besides, I’ve got no tin. Father forgot to leave me any. I’d better go to the Docks, I say.”
“You sall not. Zey will be all shut fast zere. No, my dear friend, you sall come sleep at my hotel, and you sall have nothings to pay. It will be all right. I would die for to help ze friend of my friend.”
“Is Mr Armstrong a friend of yours?” asked the boy. “I thought you were only cheeking him that time in the Hall. Oh, all right, if you know him. Thanks awfully.”
Gustav, as delighted as a cat who has found her kitten, led the boy off jubilantly to his third-rate hotel off the Strand, taking the precaution, as he passed, to leave word at the Hall that if a gentleman called who had lost a boy, he should be told where he would find him.
He smuggled Tom up to his own garret, and made him royally welcome with three-quarters of his scanty supper and the whole of his narrow bed, sleeping himself on the floor cheerfully for the sake of the cher ami who had that night promised to go to Paris to hold the hand of his dying father.
About three in the morning there was a loud ringing of the bell and a sound of steps and voices on the stairs, and presently Mr Armstrong entered the room.
Gustav sprang up with his finger on his lips, pointing to the sleeping boy.
“Oh, mon ami,” whispered he, “’ow ’appy I am you ’ave found ’im. But I keep him ver’ safe. I love to do it, for you are ver’ good to me and the pauvre père. He sall rest here till to-day, vile you (hélas! that I have no two beds to offer you), you sall take one in ze hotel, and at morning we sall all be ’appy together.”
Mr Armstrong grimly accepted this proposal, and took a room for the night at Gustav’s hotel.
The next morning, scarcely waiting to take breakfast or bid another adieu to his grateful friend, he hurried the genial Tom, who had enjoyed himself extremely, to the station, and carried him down by express train to Maxfield.