'
'Then we've both heard the same story, no doubt.'
Mr. Lott leaned back and stared out of the window. He kept thrusting out
his lips and drawing them in again, at the same time wrinkling his forehead
into the frown which signified that he was trying to shape a thought.
'Mr. Lott,' resumed the tailor, with a gravely troubled look, 'may I ask if
John Roper made any mention of my son?'
The timber-merchant glared, and Mr. Daffy, interpreting the look as one of
anger, trembled under it.
'I feel ashamed and miserable!' burst from his lips.
'It's not your fault, Mr. Daffy,' interrupted the other in a good-natured
growl. 'You're not responsible, no more than for any stranger.'
'That's just what I can't feel,' exclaimed the tailor, nervously slapping
his knee. 'Anyway, it would be a disgrace to a man to have a son a
bookmaker--a blackguard bookmaker. That's bad enough. But when it comes to
robbing and ruining the friends of your own family--why, I never heard a
more disgraceful thing in my life. How I'm going to stand in my shop, and
hold up my head before my customers, I--do--not--know. Of course, it'll be
the talk of the town; we know what the Ropers are when they get hold of
anything.
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