Penny Blood Serial Fiction — page 61: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

CHAPTER VI MR. PAGE AND MR. HODSON — THE BOW STREET OFFICER We must now return to Mr. Page, whom we left at the George and Blue Boar, Holborn, just after he had been aroused from his slumbers by the addle-pated constables from Aylesbury. Having hastily dressed himself, the commercial traveller descended in no very pleasant humour to the public-room, where he ordered breakfast; and as he happened to be the only person there at the time, he was thrown entirely on the companionship of his own reflections. These were far from being of an agreeable nature. Indeed, Mr. Page was placed in a cruel embarrassment, from which he knew not precisely how to extricate himself; for it was certain that his employers, Messrs. Hodson and Morley, of Wood Street, would hear of his arrival in London, and they would think it very strange if he did not call upon them without delay. But how was he to make his appearance at their counting-house, and not offer to place in their hands the bills of exchange which he had received from their pro- vineial correspondents? He dared not confess that he had been robbed of those documents; for even if Hodson and Morley did not suspect his honesty, they would be sure to blame his carelessness, and his discharge from their employ- ment must inevitably follow. What was he to do? He was more than half-inclined to keep away from Wood Street until the morrow, hoping in the meantime to recover his pocketbook; -for it must be observed that he possessed a friend from whom he well knew he could borrow the fifty guineas requisite to redeem it, and he felt assured that the robber would keep to his agreement, the bills of exchange being of no possible value to him. 44 Gomichbooks (E(0)