Page:Dickens - A Child s History of England, 1900.djvu/480

50 "No, sir. I haven't got such a thing."

"Not as a grandmamma, Cobbs?"

"No, sir."

The boy looked on at the watering of the flowers, for a little while, and then said, " I shall be very glad indeed to go, Cobbs—Norah's going."

"You'll be all right then, sir," says Cobbs, "with your beautiful sweetheart by your side."

"Cobbs," returned the boy, blushing, "I never let anybody joke about it, when I can prevent them."

"It wasn't a joke, sir," says Cobbs with humility,"—wasn't so meant."

"I am glad of that, Cobbs, because I like you, you know, and you're going to live with us—Cobbs!"

"Sir."

"What do you think my grandmamma gives me, when I go down there?"

"I couldn't so much as guess, sir."

"A Bank of England five-pound note, Cobbs."

"Whew!" says Cobbs, "that's a spanking sum of money. Master Harry."

"A person could do a great deal with such a sum of money as that. Couldn't a person, Cobbs?"

"I believe you, sir!"

"Cobbs," said the boy, "I'll tell you a secret. At Norah's house they have been joking her about me, and pretending to laugh at our being engaged. Pretending to make game of it, Cobbs!"

"Such, sir," says Cobbs, "is the depravity of human natur."

The boy, looking exactly like his father, stood for a few minutes with his glowing face toward the sunset, and then departed with "Good-night, Cobbs. I'm going in."

If I was to ask Boots how it happened that he was going to leave that place just at that present time, well, he couldn't rightly answer me. lie did suppose he might have stayed there till now, if he had been anyways inclined. But, you see, he was younger then and wanted change. That's what he wanted—change. Mr. Walmers, he said to him when he give him notice of his intentions to leave, "Cobbs," he says, "have you anything to complain of? I make the inquiry, because if I