"Why, thank God, Mr. Leigh, you are saved. It was said in some of the papers and we all believed you were burned in the fire."
"You oughtn't say that, Mr. Leigh. It is not right to say that. You ought to be grateful for being saved."
"Grateful for being saved! Who? I! Who should be grateful that I am saved? Not I, for one."
"Well, your friends are very glad, any way. Didn't you hear how the people cried out with fear first, for they thought you were a ghost, and didn't you hear how they cheered then when they saw it was you yourself, alive and well?"
"I! Who am I? What am I? My clock, sir, was all I had in this whole world. It was the savings bank of my heart, of my soul, and now the bank is broken and I am beggared."
"But, Mr. Leigh, you are not beggared indeed. You have plenty of money still," said Williams in the soft tone one uses to a reasonable child.
"Money, sir, what is money to me? I am not a pauper, but what good is mere money to me? Can I dance at balls, or ride fine horses or shoot? What good is money to me more than to get me food and drink for my body? and what a body! Who will feed my soul? What will feed my soul? How am I who am but a joke of nature to live with no spiritual food? My clock was my life, and my soul, and my fame, my immortal part and now--! Gone! gone! gone!"
"But how did you escape, Mr. Leigh? We saw you winding up after you left this, and you nodded to us as usual, when the easy part of the winding came, half-way through."
"I did. Curse my mandarin neck. If I had minded nothing but my clock it would be safe now, or I should be dead with it."
"The devil takes care of his own, Mr. Hanbury," he said, speaking for the first time to the young man. "Whatever way you are going I should like to go, if you would have no objection? I have no way of my own now except the way common to us all."
"I shall be very glad to have your company," said Hanbury, who was sincerely moved at the loss and grief of the little clockmaker.
"Shall we walk or would you prefer to drive?"
"Let us drive, please. I have lost my stick. Ay, I have lost my crutch, my stick, my prop. You are very kind to let me go with you."
"Indeed I am very glad to be of any use I can."
And leaning on the arm of John Hanbury, Oscar Leigh limped out of the private bar of the Hanover.