After Evan had left, Prescott announced his intention of going up to read, and asked Frank what he intended to do with himself.
“What time is it now?—half-past seven. Tomorrow evening I am engaged out. I think I shall go down and see my uncle.”
Frank, in accordance with this intention, proceeded to change his coat, Prescott waiting while he did so. He took a quantity of letters from his pocket.
“How terribly letters do accumulate, and I am afraid that most of them want answering. Put me in mind of it to-morrow morning, Prescott, and I will do a regular batch of letter writing. What’s this? Ah! Stephen Walker—by the way I promised to look him up, and see how he is after his shaking. It is somewhere down Knightsbridge way, so I may as well do it while I think of it. As he is a tobacconist, I will go in and get a cigar, and if he recognises me, well and good; if not, I shall not introduce myself. Good-bye, old man, take care of yourself. Mind, you breakfast with me in the morning.”
Frank Maynard found the shop of Stephen Walker without much difficulty. The solitary candle burnt on the counter, but no one was in the shop. However, on hearing the door open, Carry came out of the back room, where she had been sitting reading, bringing another lighted candle in her hand. Frank, who had fully expected to see an elderly man make his appearance, was not a little surprised at seeing such a remarkably pretty girl come out. He asked for some tobacco, which Carry, who had noticed at the first glance that he was not a regular customer, gave him in silence; for, indeed, at the moment he entered, she had been engaged in a most interesting chapter of her book, and she was longing to get back to it again.
Almost mechanically she drew back the glasses from above the cigars upon the counter. Frank glanced at them.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I mean, have you any really good ones?”
Carry looked fairly up at Frank for the first time.
“Come, now,” he urged, “I have no doubt but that you have a box of good ones which you keep for your favoured customers.”
Carry smiled, and brought out the box which was usually reserved for Fred Bingham’s smoking. “I believe these are good, sir.”
“Yes,” Frank said, examining them, “these look the right thing, I will take half a dozen.”