"He's no doubt a grave and prosperous citizen of London. I've seen many
such, and he looks sworn brother to worthy Alderman Heathcoat. Moreover,
he talks merchantlike."
It seemed pretty certain that she had hit the right nail on the head. Her
explanation fitted his account of the large sums he was carrying and his
stay with and hold over Jack's father. True, Staffordshire seemed the
wrong place for such a man. Both he and his money would have been far
safer in Change Alley. If her explanation was acute and probable, her
manner of making it had convinced me that my explanation of her gaiety was
wrong. Of him she certainly had not been thinking. Then there was only one
thing left to account for it. What makes a maid as merry as a grig? Didn't
our Kate sing all morning when Jack was coming in the afternoon?
It was no concern of mine, and as a man sometimes makes his right hand
play his left hand at chess, so I now made stern Oliver lecture paltering
Wheatman, but without doing him much good. Naturally all this made me a
poor companion on the road, and for a long time Mistress Waynflete bore
with me patiently.
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