"In fifteen weeks we have saved enough to pay for half our furniture, besides keeping ourselves well. There's plenty to eat, dad. You won't starve, big as you are."
They all laughed. The cab was passing St. Thomas' Hospital. Across the bridge a noble prospect met their eyes. London had a glamour for Mason that night it never held before.
"So Robinson wrote to Bradley, knowing that I would report myself to-day, and Bradley arranged----"
"Who is Robinson, father?" interrupted John.
"The superintendent, to be sure. He used to be inspector at Whitechapel."
"He is not the man we mean. We are talking of Mr. Giles, superintendent of the Mary Anson Home."
The two boys felt their father's start of dismay, of positive affright. They wondered what had happened to give him such a shock. Peering at him sideways from the corners of the hansom, they could see the quick pallor of his swarthy face.
"You forget, John," put in the adroit William, "that father knows as little about our lives as we knew about his until very recently. When we reach our flat we must begin at the beginning and tell him everything."
"There isn't much to tell," cried John. "When poor mother died, we were taken care of by a gentleman whom Mr. Philip asked to look after us. When the Mary Anson Home was built we were among the first batch of inmates. If ever a young man has done good in this world, it is Mr. Philip Anson. See what he did for us. Mother was nursed and tended with the utmost kindness, but her life could not be saved. We were rescued from the workhouse, taught well and fed well, and given such instruction in a first-class trade that even at our age we can earn five pounds a week between us. And what he has done for us he does for hundreds of others. God bless Philip Anson, I say!"
The voices of his sons reached Mason's tortured brain like sounds heard, remote but distinct, through a long tunnel. His great frame seemed to collapse. In an instant he became an old man. He set his teeth and jammed his elbows against the woodwork of the cab, but, strive as he would, with his immense physical strength and his dogged will, he shook with a palsy.
"Father!" cried John, anxiously, little dreaming how his enthusiastic speech had pierced to the very marrow of his hearer, "are you ill? Shall we stop?"