Bob Strongs Holidays | Page 7

we arrive at Portsmouth, the collector will be asking for your ticket; what will you say then, eh?"
"I thought, sir, of jumping out afore the train got there, sir," said Dick, scratching his head reflectively. "Aye, I did."
"Broke your neck, probably!" growled the old Captain. "The best thing that could have happened to you, my lad."
Bob and Nellie meanwhile had been whispering together and comparing notes apparently as to the state of their respective funds; for, Nellie had extracted a little leather purse from some hidden receptacle in her dress, while Bob was feeling in his pockets. Before either could speak, however, Captain Dresser anticipated their evident intention.
"Suppose now I paid your fare for you?" he went on, addressing Dick. "What would you say to that, eh?"
"Lor', sir, I'd be orful grateful, that I'd be, sir--I would indeed, sir," eagerly replied the lad in an outburst of thankfulness; "and if, sir, I could work it out in any way so as to repay the money, I'd be that glad yer wouldn't know me."
"Humph!" grunted the Captain again. "We'll see about that."
Bob and Nellie, both of whom had been listening with intense interest to Dick's cross-examination, were quite carried away with enthusiasm at this happy termination of the animated discussion that had gone on.
"Oh, you dear Captain," cried Nellie, hugging the old sailor rapturously. "You've just done what Bob and I wished."
"Have I?" said he smiling. "I don't see it, I'm sure."
"Yes, you have, you have," she replied impulsively. "Bob and I were just going to offer the same thing when you took the words out of our mouth."
"And the money out of my pocket, eh?" slyly added the Captain with a chuckle--"eh, missy?"
"But we'd like to pay too," said Bob. "Let us go shares, sir."
"Not a bit of it," retorted the other, blinking away as he always appeared to do when excited. "That was only my joke. I will pay his fare for him when we get to Portsmouth; for, I like the pluck of the lad in climbing on to the train like that, and not being daunted by obstacles in carrying out a planned purpose. Can't say much for his looks though. He seems to me half-starved."
The latter observation was uttered in an undertone, the Captain having too much delicacy to comment on Dick's appearance in his hearing. Miss Nellie, however, acted instantly on the suggestion, which gave it a practical turn.
"Are you hungry, poor boy," she asked Dick--"very hungry?"
"No, miss," he answered humbly; "not pertick'ler, I be."
"But you could eat a sandwich, perhaps?" said she, opening a parcel which their mother had put up for the refreshment of Bob and herself during their journey. "Don't you think you could?"
Dick's eyes glistened.
"I'll try, miss," said he, trying to speak calmly; although they could see that he was really almost ravenous at the sight of the food. "I thinks as how I could eat a mou'ful."
"Give him the lot, poor chap," cried the old Captain; but Nellie did not need this admonition, being in the very act of handing over the parcel of sandwiches to Dick even while the old sailor spoke. "There's no good in his making two bites of a cherry, as the saying goes."
"Eat these, my poor boy," cried Nellie. "Bob and I had buns at Waterloo before the train started, and we shan't want anything till we get to auntie's house."
"Fire away, old chap!" chimed in Bob, noticing that the lad hesitated a moment in accepting the proffered gift. "You needn't be afraid. Nellie and I are not hungry like you."
Bob's friendly tone, coupled with the sight of the tempting viands, at once removed any of Dick's lingering scruples; and, in another minute, he was gobbling up the sandwiches like a famished wolf--his fellow- travellers looking on with the utmost complacency and satisfaction at the rapidity with which he got rid of them, bolting the little squares of bread and meat one by one.
All this time, the engine was puffing and snorting away as if it had a bad attack of asthma, giving a fierce pull every now and then to the dragging carriages behind it; while, when the stalwart iron horse occasionally loitered in his paces or slackened speed in going round a sharp curve on the line, the coupling-chains would rattle as they lost their tension and the buffers of the carriages behind, going faster for the moment than the engine, would come together with a bang that vibrated through the marrow-bones of all!
The scenery altered, too, every instant along the route; the wooded heights around Guildford and Godalming and Haslemere, which the poet Tennyson loved and where he lived and died, being succeeded by a stretch of level landscape, and this again by the steep bare hills encircling sleepy Petersfield.
Presently, a range