"No business to have left me, Grace. I should have made a man of you.
Well, how are you getting on?"
"Capitally," I said.
"Don't believe it. Better have stopped with me. Heard from Peter?"
"No," I said eagerly. "Have you?"
"Yes. Just the same as usual. Down at Rowford still, smoking himself
to death. Hah! capital pinch of snuff this," he added, regaling himself
again. "Sent his love to you, and said I was to tell you--tell you--
where the dickens did I put that letter?" he continued, pulling a bundle
of dip-proofs out of his breast-pocket, and hunting them over--"said I
was to tell you--ah, here it is--to tell you--Ah--`Tell young Grace I
shall come up to town and see him some day, and I'll give you a look up
too.' Bah! Don't want him: won't have him. We should be sure to
quarrel. He'd come here, and sit and smoke all day--where's my--oh,
here it is."
He took a couple of pinches of snuff in a queer, excited way, and
snapped his fingers loudly.
"I shall be very, very glad to see him when he does come," I said
warmly.
"Ah, yes, of course you will. He's got some papers or something, he
says, for you."
"Has he?"
"So he says. Hang Peter! I don't like him, somehow."
There was a comical look of chagrin in the old man's face as he spoke;
but it was mingled with a dry, humorous air that refused to be
concealed, and I seemed to feel in my heart that if the brothers met,
Mr Jabez would be thoroughly cordial.
"Well, I'm glad you did condescend to call, young engine-driver," he
said at last; "as it happens, I'm not busy to-night. You won't take a
pinch of snuff?"