Mr. Green shook his head.
“It’s worth more than a tanner then,” said Tommy, briskly.
“Look ’ere,” said Joe, suppressing his natural instincts by a strong effort. “You keep quiet for three days, and I’ll be a friend to you for life. And so will Will-yum, won’t you, old man?”
Mr. Green, with a smile of rare condescension, said that he would.
“Look ’ere,” said the bargainer, “I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you: you gimme another tanner each instead, and that’s letting you off cheap, ’cos your friendship ’ud be worth pounds and pounds to anybody what wanted it.”
He gazed firmly at his speechless, would-be friends and waited patiently until such time as their emotion would permit of a reply. Joe was the first to speak, and Tommy listened unmoved to a description of himself which would have made a jelly-fish blush.
“Tanner each,” he said, simply; “I don’t want friends who can talk like that to save sixpence.”
Mr. Green, with a sarcasm which neither Tommy nor Joe understood, gave him the amount in coppers. His friend followed suit, and the boy, having parted with his reputation at a fair price, went below, whistling.
Fraser came on board soon afterwards, and Mr. Green, with his celebrated drunken scene fresh in his mind, waited nervously for developments. None ensuing, he confided to Joe his firm conviction that Miss Tyrell was a young lady worth dying for, and gloomily wondered whether Fraser was good enough for her. After which, both men, somewhat elated, fell to comparing head-pieces.
Joe was in a state of nervous tension while steam was getting up, and, glued to the side of the steamer, strained his eyes, gazing at the dimly-lit stairs. As they steamed rapidly down the river his spirits rose, and he said vaguely that something inside him seemed to tell him that his trouble would not be in vain.