“Now you’re happy!” said the chain, as we found ourselves once more in the drawer.
“Yes; I’m all right now, I’m glad to say,” said I. “What’s going to happen to us to-morrow?” I asked presently.
“We’re going to be given to the boy, and he’s going to school;” so the silver chain told me. “Nice time we shall have of it, I expect.”
After that he went to sleep, and I fell to counting the seconds, and wondering what sort of life I was destined to lead.
About an hour after I heard two voices talking in the room.
“Well,” said one, and I recognised it at once as my master’s, “the packing’s all finished at last.”
“Ah, Charles,” said the other, and it seemed to be a woman’s voice speaking amid tears, “I never thought it would be so hard to part with him.”
“Tut, tut!” said the first, “you mustn’t give way, Mary. You women are so ready to break down. He’ll soon be back;” but before my master had got to the end of his sentence he too had broken down.
For a long time they talked about their boy, their fine boy who had never before left his parents’ roof, and was about now to step out into the treacherous world. How they trembled for him, yet how proudly and confidently they spoke of his prospects; how lovingly they recalled all their life together, from the days when he could first toddle about, down to the present.
Many tears were mingled with their talk, and many a smothered sob bespoke a desperate effort to subdue their common sorrow. At last they became quieter, then I heard my master say,—