“Rudolph,” he said, “what makes you hate me so?”
“Haven’t you tried to injure me—didn’t you get me arrested? Do you forget that night in the old miser’s hut?”
“No, I don’t forget it, but you forced me to act as I did. But even if I did injure you, you took your revenge.”
“When you threw me into the well. How could you do such a dark deed? What had I done that you should seek to murder me?”
“How did you get out?” asked Rudolph, giving way to curiosity.
“By means of the wall that lined the well. Finally I got hold of the rope.”
“So that was the way, was it? I ought to have made surer of your fate.”
“By throwing some rocks down on you,” answered the tramp, with a malignant frown.
“I am glad I have not such a wicked disposition as you, Rudolph,” said Tony, looking at him fixedly.
“Take care how you insult me, boy!” said Rudolph, angrily.
“I have no wish to insult you. Now tell me why you have lured me here? I suppose you hired the boy.”
“I did, and he did the work well,” said the tramp, triumphantly.
“Well, now, I am here, what do you want of me?”
“First, tell me how you happen to be in London? Did you know I was here?”
“What!” exclaimed the tramp, in surprise. “Did you reach New York so soon?”
“Yes. I lost my situation at the inn, for they did not believe my story about having been thrown down the well by a Quaker.” Rudolph laughed.
“It was a good disguise,” he said. “So they discharged you? That was good.”
“I did not think so at the time, but it proved to be the luckiest thing that could happen to me.”
“It led me to go to New York. There I found a rich and generous friend. I have been with him ever since.”
“No; as his adopted brother. He supplied me with teachers, and in little more than six months I have acquired as much as most boys do in two or three years.”
“So you have gone in for education, have you?” said Rudolph, sneering.
“Yes. Could I go in for anything better?”
“And you consider yourself a young gentleman now, do you?”
“That is the rank I hold in society,” said Tony, calmly.
“And you forget that you were once Tony the Tramp?”
“No, Rudolph, I have not forgotten that. It was not my fault, and I am not ashamed of it. But I should be ashamed if I had not left that kind of life as soon as I was able.”