This was too much even for the dispirited and cowed Loman. He caught the impudent boy a box on the ear, which resounded all over the Cockchafer, and sent him howling and yelling to his master.
Cripps appeared at last in a fury. What, he demanded, with half a dozen oaths, did Loman mean by coming there and assaulting him and his assistants? “What do you mean, you thieving jackanapes, you! Get out of my shop, do you hear? or I’ll get some one in who will help you out! I’ll teach you to come here and make yourself at home, you lying—”
“Now, Cripps,” began Loman.
“Hold your noise! do you hear?” said Cripps, savagely.
“I’m very sorry, Cripps,” said the wretched boy; “I didn’t mean to hurt him, but he—”
“Oh! you won’t go, won’t you? Very good! we’ll see if we can make you;” and Cripps departed from the bar, leaving his young “patron” in anything but a comfortable frame of mind.
For once in a way, however, Loman was roused, and would not go. The boy—miserable specimen as he was—had some courage in him, and when once goaded up to the proper pitch it came out. If he went, he argued to himself, Cripps would certainly come up to Saint Dominic’s after him. If he waited till the police or some of the roughs came and ejected him he could not be much worse off; and there was a chance that, by remaining, he might still be able to pacify his evil genius.
So he stayed. Another quarter of an hour passed; no one came to turn him out. A few customers came into the bar and were served by the sulky potboy, but there was no sign of Cripps.
“Go and tell your master I’m here still, and want to see him particularly,” said Loman, presently, to the boy.
The boy looked up and scowled and rubbed his ear, but somehow that timely blow of Loman’s had wrought wonders with his spirit, for he quietly went off and did as he was bid.