"I came back just before you did," said Hardy. "Bra.s.s band playing you in and all that sort of thing, I suppose," said the other. "Alas, how the wicked prosper--and you were wicked. Do you remember how you used to knock me about?"
"Come round to my place and have a chat," said Hardy.
Jack shook his head. "They"re expecting me in to tea," he said, with a nod in the direction of Mr. Kybird"s, "and honest waterside labourers who earn their bread by the sweat of their brow--when the foreman is looking --do not frequent the society of the upper cla.s.ses."
"Don"t be a fool," said Hardy, politely.
"Well, I"m not very tidy," retorted Mr. Nugent, glancing at his clothes. "I don"t mind it myself; I"m a philosopher, and nothing hurts me so long as I have enough to eat and drink; but I don"t inflict myself on my friends, and I must say most of them meet me more than half-way."
"Imagination," said Hardy.
"All except Kate and my aunt," said Jack, firmly. "Poor Kate; I tried to cut her the other day."
"Cut her?" echoed Hardy.
Nugent nodded. "To save her feelings," he replied; "but she wouldn"t be cut, bless her, and on the distinct understanding that it wasn"t to form a precedent, I let her kiss me behind a waggon. Do you know, I fancy she"s grown up rather good-looking, Jem?"
"You are observant," said Mr. Hardy, admiringly.
"Of course, it may be my partiality," said Mr. Nugent, with judicial fairness. "I was always a bit fond of Kate. I don"t suppose anybody else would see anything in her. Where are you living now?"
"Fort Road," said Hardy; "come round any evening you can, if you won"t come now."
Nugent promised, and, catching sight of Miss Kybird standing in the doorway of the shop, bade him good-bye and crossed the road. It was becoming quite a regular thing for her to wait and have her tea with him now, an arrangement which was provocative of many sly remarks on the part of Mrs. Kybird.
"Thought you were never coming," said Miss Kybird, tartly, as she led the way to the back room and took her seat at the untidy tea-tray.
"And you"ve been crying your eyes out, I suppose," remarked Mr. Nugent, as he groped in the depths of a tall jar for black-currant jam. "Well, you"re not the first, and I don"t suppose you"ll be the last. How"s Teddy?"
"Get your tea," retorted Miss Kybird, "and don"t make that sc.r.a.ping noise on the bottom of the jar with your knife. It puts my teeth on edge."
"So it does mine," said Mr. Nugent, "but there"s a black currant down there, and I mean to have it. "Waste not, want not.""
"Make him put that knife down," said Miss Kybird, as her mother entered the room. Mrs. Kybird shook her head at him. "You two are always quarrelling," she said, archly, "just like a couple of--couple of----"
"Love-birds," suggested Mr. Nugent.
Mrs. Kybird in great glee squeezed round to him and smote him playfully with her large, fat hand, and then, being somewhat out of breath with the exertion, sat down to enjoy the jest in comfort.
"That"s how you encourage him," said her daughter; "no wonder he doesn"t behave. No wonder he acts as if the whole place belongs to him."
The remark was certainly descriptive of Mr. Nugent"s behaviour. His easy a.s.surance and affability had already made him a prime favourite with Mrs. Kybird, and had not been without its effect upon her daughter. The constrained and severe company manners of Mr. Edward Silk showed up but poorly beside those of the paying guest, and Miss Kybird had on several occasions drawn comparisons which would have rendered both gentlemen uneasy if they had known of them.
Mr. Nugent carried the same easy good-fellowship with him the following week when, neatly attired in a second-hand suit from Mr. Kybird"s extensive stock, he paid a visit to Jem Hardy to talk over old times and discuss the future.
"You ought to make friends with your father," said the latter; "it only wants a little common sense and mutual forbearance."
"That"s all," said Nugent; "sounds easy enough, doesn"t it? No, all he wants is for me to clear out of Sunwich, and I"m not going to--until it pleases me, at any rate. It"s poison to him for me to be living at the Kybirds" and pushing a trolley down on the quay. Talk about love sweetening toil, that does."
Hardy changed the subject, and Nugent, nothing loath, discoursed on his wanderings and took him on a personally conducted tour through the continent of Australia. "And I"ve come back to lay my bones in Sunwich Churchyard," he concluded, pathetically; "that is, when I"ve done with "em."
"A lot of things"ll happen before then," said Hardy.
"I hope so," rejoined Mr. Nugent, piously; "my desire is to be buried by my weeping great-grandchildren. In fact, I"ve left instructions to that effect in my will--all I have left, by the way."
"You"re not going to keep on at this water-side work, I suppose?" said Hardy, making another effort to give the conversation a serious turn.
"The foreman doesn"t think so," replied the other, as he helped himself to some whisky; "he has made several remarks to that effect lately."
He leaned back in his chair and smoked thoughtfully, by no means insensible to the comfort of his surroundings. He had not been in such comfortable quarters since he left home seven years before. He thought of the untidy litter of the Kybirds" back parlour, with the forlorn view of the yard in the rear. Something of his reflections he confided to Hardy as he rose to leave.
"But my market value is about a pound a week," he concluded, ruefully, "so I must cut my coat to suit my cloth. Good-night."
He walked home somewhat soberly at first, but the air was cool and fresh and a glorious moon was riding in the sky. He whistled cheerfully, and his spirits rose as various chimerical plans of making money occurred to him. By the time he reached the High Street, the shops of which were all closed for the night, he was earning five hundred a year and spending a thousand. He turned the handle of the door and, walking in, discovered Miss Kybird entertaining company in the person of Mr. Edward Silk.
"Halloa," he said, airily, as he took a seat. "Don"t mind me, young people. Go on just as you would if I were not here."
Mr. Edward Silk grumbled something under his breath; Miss Kybird, turning to the intruder with a smile of welcome, remarked that she had just thought of going to sleep.
"Going to sleep?" repeated Mr. Silk, thunder-struck.
"Yes," said Miss Kybird, yawning.
Mr. Silk gazed at her, open-mouthed. "What, with me "ere?" he inquired, in trembling tones.
"You"re not very lively company," said Miss Kybird, bending over her sewing. "I don"t think you"ve spoken a word for the last quarter of an hour, and before that you were talking of death-warnings. Made my flesh creep, you did."
"Shame!" said Mr. Nugent.
"You didn"t say anything to me about your flesh creeping," muttered Mr. Silk.
"You ought to have seen it creep," interposed Mr. Nugent, severely.
"I"m not talking to you," said Mr. Silk, turning on him; "when I want the favour of remarks from you I"ll let you know."
"Don"t you talk to my gentlemen friends like that, Teddy," said Miss Kybird, sharply, "because I won"t have it. Why don"t you try and be bright and cheerful like Mr. Nugent?"
Mr. Silk turned and regarded that gentleman steadfastly; Mr. Nugent meeting his gaze with a pleasant smile and a low-voiced offer to give him lessons at half a crown an hour.
"I wouldn"t be like "im for worlds," said Mr. Silk, with a scornful laugh. "I"d sooner be like anybody."
"What have you been saying to him?" inquired Nugent.
"Nothing," replied Miss Kybird; "he"s often like that. He"s got a nasty, miserable, jealous disposition. Not that I mind what he thinks."
Mr. Silk breathed hard and looked from one to the other.
"Perhaps he"ll grow out of it," said Nugent, hopefully. "Cheer up, Teddy. You"re young yet."