"
"Hang it all!" broke in Wilkins, with compunction, "I haven't been
very kind. I ought to have gone and seen your wife and found out
how things were; and I meant to, but I've been so confoundedly
busy--"
"No matter now; I've not a moment to spare. You must help me to
break the news of my return in my own way. I mean they shall have
such a Christmas in the little cottage as was never known in this
town. You could send a load right over there, couldn't you?"
"Certainly, certainly," said Wilkins, under the impulse of both
business thrift and goodwill; and a list of tea, coffee, sugar,
flour, bread, cakes, apples, etc., was dashed off rapidly; and
Marlow had the satisfaction of seeing the errand-boy, the two
clerks, and the proprietor himself busily working to fill the
order in the shortest possible space of time.
He next went to a restaurant, a little further down the street,
where he had taken his meals for a short time before he brought
his family to town, and was greeted with almost equal surprise and
warmth. Marlow cut short all words by his almost feverish haste.
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