"Any news of or from Captain Jack is right welcome in mine ears,"
he said; "but this is not the time or place in which to speak of
such things. Come tomorrow morning early to my lodgings in the
Mall--any man will direct you to them--and there we will speak at
ease. Forget not--tomorrow morning by ten o' the clock, ere my
levee has begun. I shall expect you. Farewell, good youth, and keep
your distance with those gentlemen you have just left. They would
like to spit you as a goose is spitted, but I would see you again
ere that consummation be achieved!"
He nodded to Tom, and took up his paper again; and Tom, turning
round, encountered the amazed glance of Harry, who had come in to
find him, and discovered him in friendly converse with the greatest
man of all the company.
"How now, Tom! But you have a mettlesome spirit after all, if you
can scrape acquaintance with Lord Claud. I have been in his company
many a time, but never a word has he vouchsafed to me. And are you
invited to his lodgings? Surely my ears must have deceived me!"
"In sooth he asked me, but it is only to hear a message I chance to
bear from an old friend of his. Harry, tell me who is this Lord
Claud? Men seem to worship the ground he treads upon, and yet to
fear him, too, more than a little.
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