"
"I have had the pleasure of meeting them already," said my father, "and
as you are by no means certain that they will come, I will ask you to let
me thank you for all that you have been good enough to shew me, and bid
you good-afternoon. I have a rather pressing engagement--"
"My dear sir, you must please give me five minutes more. I shall examine
the boys in the Musical Bank Catechism." He pointed to one of them and
said, "Repeat your duty towards your neighbour."
"My duty towards my neighbour," said the boy, "is to be quite sure that
he is not likely to borrow money of me before I let him speak to me at
all, and then to have as little to do with him as--"
At this point there was a loud ring at the door bell. "Hanky and Panky
come to see me, no doubt," said Mr. Turvey. "I do hope it is so. You
must stay and see them."
"My dear sir," said my father, putting his handkerchief up to his face,
"I am taken suddenly unwell and must positively leave you." He said this
in so peremptory a tone that Mr. Turvey had to yield. My father held his
handkerchief to his face as he went through the passage and hall, but
when the servant opened the door he took it down, for there was no Hanky
or Panky--no one, in fact, but a poor, wizened old man who had come, as
he did every other Saturday afternoon, to wind up the Deformatory clocks.
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