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Rh perhaps I never may see you again in this world; but I ’ope I shall in the next, where I ’ope to be a comfort to you all, so God bless you all, my dears, for ever—’”

He got no further; nor had many attended to the last sentences. The lad’s unavailing protests had ended in veritable wailing and gnashing of teeth; it was this that had aroused Tom from his lethargy, and he also was now upon the table, clanking down the length of it to where the reader stood.

One or two mistook his intentions. “That’s it— you read it,” said they; but the most of them read Tom’s face.

“Give me that letter,” he said sternly, halting before the man.

“Give who it?” roared the other. “Oh, it’s you, eh?” he added, and seemed in doubt.

“Lads,” cried Tom, seizing his opportunity, “this is going a step too far, don’t you think? We all of us had friends once—in another world as it seems to me—but if any of us like to remember we had them, surely it’s that man’s business and not ours? He’s a better man than most of us, and his letter’s the last thing that we should meddle with. We wouldn’t have done it once, and we won’t now.” His temperate tone surprised himself; but it merely showed how every sensibility had lost its edge. Two months ago he would have argued such a point with his ready hands.

Meanwhile the reader had decided not to fight, being an insufficient number of inches bigger and broader than Tom, and having still in his ears the thud with which the scourger fell. But neither was he going to give in like a man, because men were scarce in those heavy irons. Accordingly he retained the letter a little longer, before handing it to Tom with a mocking bow.