Page:Gissing - The Nether World, vol. II, 1889.djvu/117

 Hanover Street, the old man took occasion to speak of the matter. Joseph accepted the information with his usual pliancy.

“I only wish my wife and me could join you,” he remarked. “But it wouldn’t do to take a holiday so soon after settling to business. Better luck for me next year, father, let’s hope.”

That he had settled to business was a fact of which Joseph made so much just now that one would have been tempted to suppose it almost a new experience for him. His engagement, he declared, was with a firm of advertising agents in the City; nothing to boast of, unfortunately, and remunerative only in the way of commission; but he saw his way to better things.

“Jane, my girl,” he continued, averting his eyes as if in emotion, “I don’t know how you and me are going to show our gratitude for all this kindness, I’m sure. I hope you haven’t got so used to it that you think there’s no need to thank your grandfather?”

The girl and the old man exchanged a