"Impertinent!—thrash!" exclaimed Mr Peacock, waxing very red; but catching the sneer on his companion's lip, he sat down, and subsided into sullen silence.
Meanwhile I paid my bill. This duty, rarely a cheerful one, performed, I looked round for my knapsack, and perceived that it was in the boy's hands. He was very coolly reading the address which, in case of accidents, I had prudently placed on it—Pisistratus Caxton, Esq., —— Hotel, —— Street, —, Strand.
I took my knapsack from him, more surprised at such a breach of good manners in a young gentleman who knew life so well, than I should have been at a similar error on the part of Mr Peacock. He made no apology, but nodded farewell, and stretched himself at full length on the bench. Mr Peacock, now absorbed in a game of patience, vouchsafed no return to my parting salutation, and in another moment I was alone on the high-road. My thoughts turned long upon the young man I had left: mixed with a sort of instinctive compassionate foreboding of an ill future for one with such habits, and in such companionship, I felt an involuntary admiration, less even for his good looks than his ease, audacity, and the careless superiority he assumed over a comrade so much older than himself.
The day was far gone when I saw the spires of a town at which I intended to rest for the night. The horn of a coach behind made me turn my head, and, as the vehicle passed me, I saw on the outside Mr Peacock, still struggling with a cigar—it could scarcely be the same—and his young friend stretched on the roof amongst the luggage, leaning his handsome head on his hand, and apparently unobservant both of me and every one else.
CHAPTER XIII.
I am apt—judging egotistically, perhaps, from my own experience—to measure a young man's chances of what is termed practical success in life, by what may seem at first two very vulgar qualities; viz., his inquisitiveness and his animal vivacity. A curiosity which springs forward to examine every thing new to his information—a nervous activity, approaching to restlessness, which rarely allows bodily fatigue to interfere with some object in view—constitute, in my mind, very profitable stock in hand to begin the world with.
Tired as I was, after I had performed my ablutions, and refreshed myself in the little coffee-room of the inn at which I put up, with the pedestrian's best beverage, familiar and oft-calumniated tea, I could not resist the temptation of the broad bustling street, which, lighted with gas, shone on me through the dim windows of the coffee-room. I had never before seen a large town, and the contrast of lamp-lit, busy night in the streets, with sober, deserted night in the lanes and fields, struck me forcibly.
I sauntered out, therefore, jostling and jostled, now gazing at the windows, now hurried along the tide of life, till I found myself before a cook' shop, round which clustered a small knot of housewives, citizens, and hungry-looking children. While contemplating this group, and marvelling how it comes to pass that the staple business of earth's majority is how, when, and where to eat, my ear was struck with "'In Troy there lies the scene,' as the illustrious Will remarks."
Looking round, I perceived Mr Peacock pointing his stick towards an open doorway next to the cook's shop, the hall beyond which was lighted with gas, while, painted in black letters on a pane of glass over the door, was the word "Billiards."
Suiting the action to the word, the speaker plunged at once into the aperture and vanished. The boy-copanion was following more slowly, when his eye caught mine. A slight blush came over his dark cheek; he stopped, and leaning against the door-jambs, gazed on me hard and long before he said—"Well met again, sir! You find it hard to amuse yourself in this dull place; the nights are long out of London."