Mark need fear him no longer. 'Why, there you are,
uncle--eh?' he said, with much innocent satisfaction. 'I couldn't
think where you'd got to.'

'Oh, I dessay,' growled Mr. Lightowler, 'and your friend nearly lost
the train lookin' for me, didn't he? I'm not to be got over by soft
speakin', Mark, and I'm sharp enough to see where I'm not wanted. I
must say, though, that that feller, if he's one of your friends, might
a' shown me a little more common respect, knowing 'oo I was, instead
o' bolting away while I was talkin' to him, for all the world as if he
wanted to get rid of me.'

Mark saw that his uncle was seriously annoyed, and hastened to soothe
his ruffled dignity--a task which was by no means easy.

'It isn't as if I needed to talk to him either,' he persisted. 'I've a
friend of my own to see off, that's why I'm here at this time
(Liverpool _he's_ goin' to),' he added, with some obscure sense of
superiority implied in this fact; 'and let me tell you, he's a man
that's looked up to by every one there, is Budkin, and'll be mayor
before he dies! And another thing let me say to you, Mark. In the
course of my life I've picked up, 'ere and there, some slight
knowledge of human character, and I read faces as easy as print. Now I
don't like the look of that friend of yours.'

'Do you mean Caffyn?' asked Mark.

'I don't know _him_; no, I mean that down-lookin' chap you introduced
to me--'Olroyd, isn't it? Well, don't you have too much to do with
him--there's something in his eye I don't fancy; he ain't to be
trusted, and you mind what I say.'

'Well,' said Mark, 'I can promise you that I shall see no more of him
than I can help in future, if that's any relief to your mind.'

'You stick to that then, and--'ullo, there is Budkin come at last! You
come along with me and I'll introduce you (he's not what you call a
refined sort of feller, yer know,' he explained forbearingly, 'but
still we've always been friends in a way); you can't stop? Must go
back to Miss Mabel, hey? Well, well, I won't keep yer; good-bye till
the day after to-morrow then, and don't you forgit what you'd 'a been
if you'd been thrown on the world without an uncle--there'd be no
pretty Miss Mabel for you then, whatever you may think about it, young
chap!'

When Mark made his appearance at Kensington Park Gardens again, Dolly
watched his face anxiously, longing to ask if Vincent had really gone
at last, but somehow she was afraid. And so, as the ti