“That fellow’s going wrong,” muttered the pawnbroker to himself, as he laid the pin on the shelf beside me.
I recognised it at once as having often been my companion on Tom’s dressing-table at nights, but I myself was so discoloured and ill that it did not at first know me. I was too anxious, however, to hear some thing about Tom to allow myself to remain disguised.
“Don’t you know me, scarf-pin?” I asked.
He looked hard at me. “Not a bit,” he said.
“I’m Tom Drift’s old watch.”
“You don’t say so! So you are! How ever did you come here? Did he pawn you?”
“No; I was stolen from him one night at the music-hall, and pawned here by the thief.”
“Ah, that music-hall!” groaned the pin; “that place has ruined Tom Drift.”
“When I left him,” I said, “he was just going to the bad as hard as he could. He had broken with his best friend, and seemed completely—”
“Hold hard! what friend?” interposed the pin.