He had begun to eat with great appetite, glancing round the room meanwhile with a triumphant anticipation of quitting it for ever on the morrow, when his attention was arrested by a stealthy footstep on the stairs, and presently by a knock at his chamber door, which, although it was a gentle knock enough, communicated such a start to the bundle of firewood, that it instantly leaped out of window, and plunged into the street.
`More coals, I suppose,' said Martin. `Come in!'
`It an't a liberty, sir, though it seems so,' rejoined a man's voice. `Your servant, sir. Hope you're pretty well, sir.'
Martin stared at the face that was bowing in the doorway: perfectly remembering the features and expression, but quite forgetting to whom they belonged.
`Tapley, sir,' said his visitor. `Him as formerly lived at the Dragon, sir, and was forced to leave in consequence of a want of jollity, sir.'
`To be sure!' cried Martin. `Why, how did you come here?'
`Right through the passage, and up the stairs, sir,' said Mark.
`How did you find me out, I mean?' asked Martin.
`Why, sir,' said Mark, `I've passed you once or twice in the street if I'm not mistaken; and when I was a- looking in at the beef-and-ham shop just now, along with a hungry sweep, as was very much calculated to make a man jolly, sir, I see you a-buying that.'
Martin reddened as he pointed to the table, and said, somewhat hastily:
`Well! What then?'
`Why, then, sir,' said Mark, `I made bold to foller; and as I told 'em down-stairs that you expected me, I was let up.'
`Are you charged with any message, that you told them you were expected?' inquired Martin.
`No, sir, I an't,' said Mark. `That was what you may call a pious fraud, sir, that was.'
Martin cast an angry look at him: but there was something in the fellow's merry face, and in his manner which with all its cheerfulness was far from being obtrusive or familiar, that quite disarmed him. He had lived a solitary life too, for many weeks, and the voice was pleasant in his ear.
`Tapley,' he said, `I'll deal openly with you. From all I can judge and from all I have heard of you through Pinch, you are not a likely kind of fellow to have been brought here by impertinent curiosity or any other offensive motive. Sit down. I'm glad to see you.'
`Thankee, sir,' said Mark. `I'd as lieve stand.'
"If you don't sit down,' retorted Martin, `I'll not talk to you.'
`Very good, sir,' observed Mark. `Your will's a law, sir. Down it is;' and he sat down accordingly upon the bedstead.
`Help yourself,' said Martin, handing him the only knife.
`Thankee, sir,' rejoined Mark. `After you've done.'
`If you don't take it now, you'll not have any,' said Martin.