He was accompanied by
a smart-looking, much younger man, whom Pratt remembered to have seen in
Beck Street that afternoon--a stranger to him and to Barford. And as he
watched, these two covered the narrow roadway, and walked into
Murgatroyd's shop.
CHAPTER XXIV
THE BETTER HALF
Under the warming influence of two glasses of rum and water, and lulled
by Pratt's assurance that all would be well, Murgatroyd had carried home
his hundred pounds with pretty much the same feeling which permeates a
man who, having been within measurable distance of drowning, suddenly
finds a substantial piece of timber drifting his way, and takes a firm
grip on it. After all, a hundred pounds was a hundred pounds. He would
be able to pay his rent, and his rates, and give something to the grocer
and the butcher and the baker and the milkman; the children should have
some much-needed new clothes and boots--when all this was done, there
would be a nice balance left over. And it was Pratt's affair, when all
was said and done, and if any trouble arose, why, Pratt would have to
settle it. So he ate his supper with the better appetite which Pratt had
prophesied, and he slept more satisfactorily than usual, and next
morning he went to the nearest telegraph office and sent off the
stipulated telegram to Halstead & Byner in London, and hoped that there
was the end of the matter as far as he was concerned.
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