"Thank you," said Peter in rather a quivering voice and he turned away,
gulping down his disappointment.
Mr. Zanti patted him on the shoulder.
"That's right, my boy. Ah, I expect you miss your friend. You will be
lonely here, yes? Well--see--now that you have been here a few days perhaps
it is time for you to find a place to live--and I have talked wiz a friend
of mine, a ver' good friend who 'as lived for many years in a 'ouse where
'e says there is a room that will just do for you--cheap, pleasant people
... yes? To-morrow 'e will show you the place. There you will 'ave
friends--"
Peter smiled, thanked Mr. Zanti and went to bed. But his dreams were
confused that night. It seemed to him that London was a huge room with
closing walls, and that ever they came closer and closer and that he
screamed for Stephen and they would not let Stephen come to him.
And bells were ringing, and Mr. Zanti, with a lighted candle in his hands,
was creeping down those dark stairs that led to the kitchen, and he might
have stopped those closing walls but he would not. Then suddenly Peter
was running down the Sea Road above Treliss and the waves were sounding
furiously below him--his father was there waiting for him sternly, at the
road's end and Herr Gottfried with a Homer in one hand and his blue shoes
in the other sat watching them out of his bright eyes.
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