time.

CHAPTER THIRTY TWO.

SUCCESS AND FUTURE PLANS.

Punctual to the minute Zook presented himself to Mrs Butt next morning
and demanded audience.

Mrs Butt had been forewarned of the impending visit, and, although she
confessed to some uncomfortable feelings in respect of infection and
dirt, received him with a gracious air.

"You've come to breakfast, I understand?"

"Well, I believe I 'ave," answered the little man, with an involuntary
glance at his dilapidated clothes; "'avin' been inwited--unless," he
added, somewhat doubtfully, "the inwite came in a dream."

"You may go in and clear up that point for yourself," said the landlady,
as she ushered the poor man into the parlour, where he was almost
startled to find an amiable gentleman waiting to receive him.

"Come along, Zook, I like punctuality. Are you hungry?"

"'Ungry as a 'awk, sir," replied Zook, glancing at the table and rubbing
his hands, for there entered his nostrils delicious odours, the causes
of which very seldom entered his throat. "W'y, sir, I _know'd_ you was
a gent, from the wery first!"

"I have at least entered my native shell," said Charlie, with a laugh.
"Sit down. We've no time to waste. Now what'll you have? Coffee, tea,
pork-sausage, ham and egg, buttered toast, hot rolls. Just help
yourself, and fancy you're in the lodging-house at your own table."

"Well, sir, that _would_ be a stretch o' fancy that would strain me
a'most to the bustin' p'int. Coffee, if you please. Oh yes, sugar an'
milk _in course_. I never let slip a chance as I knows on. W'ich
bread? well, 'ot rolls is temptin', but I allers 'ad a weakness for
sappy things, so 'ot buttered toast--if you can spare it."

"Spare it, my good man!" said Charlie, laughing. "There's a whole loaf
in the kitchen and pounds of butter when you've finished this, not to
mention the shops round the corner."

It was a more gratifying treat to Charlie than he had expected, to see
this poor man eat to his heart's content of viands which he so
thoroughly appreciated and so rarely enjoyed. What Zook himself felt,
it is impossible for well-to-do folk to conceive, or an ordinary pen to
describe; but, as he sat there, opposite to his big friend and champion,
stowing away the good things with zest and devotion of purpose, it was
easy to believe that his watery eyes were charged with the tears of
gratitude, as well as with those of a chronic cold to which he was
subject.

B