“Say good-bye to the kind gentleman, Bobbie.”
“So long,” said Bobbie, resenting the interference of Mrs. Rastin. “Look after that cold of yourn.”
“Nice thing to say, upon my word,” declared Mrs. Rastin, manoeuvring the wind. “You’ve got no more idea of etiquette than a ’og. If it wasn’t that your poor mother was lying down there, poor thing, I’d give you a jolly good ’iding.”
“Let me ketch you trying at it,” said Bobbie defiantly.
Thus, without a tear, the boy left the edge of the oblong hole in clay earth, and was blown back to the carriage. Though his eyes were dry and his manner aggressive, there came a regretful feeling now all the excitement was over, that he had to resume his position of an ordinary boy with no longer any special claims to respect in Hoxton. He wondered vaguely what the next few days would be like. He was not capable of looking beyond that. At the gate Mrs. Rastin alighted to patronise the house of refreshment so urgently recommended by the driver, and whilst that purple-faced gentleman conducted her to the private bar, Bobbie remained in the carriage, and the other man came round and looked stolidly in through the window without saying a word, as though Bobbie were a new arrival at the Zoo.
When Mrs. Rastin, in excellent humour, returned, she brought a seed biscuit for Bobbie, told him that he was a model boy, and that she wished there were six of him for her to look after.
“You run ’ome to your room,” said Mrs. Rastin, when the carriage stopped in Hoxton Street, “the key’s under the mat, and I shan’t be many minutes ’fore I’m with you. Wait for me, there’s a deer. I must have a drop of something short.”
In the walk he was hailed.
“I say, Bobbie Lancaster.”
“Now, what is it?”