How Smith went Home and I took Part in an Evening Party. (continued 3)

“He’s a gentleman, he is!” The words of the little shoeblack rang in my ears all night long, echoed by another voice from within, “What are you?” After all, had I not been doing my very best the last few days to prove Jack’s own description of me as a liar and a coward to be true?

The fellows at the office next morning were in a high state of glee over the adventures of the previous evening.

“Wasn’t it just about a spree?” said Wallop. “I never saw such a fellow as young Batch for leading one into mischief. I used to think I was a pretty wild hand, but I’m a perfect sheep to him, ain’t I, Dubbs?”

“You are so,” replied Doubleday. “Batch, my boy, if you go on at the rate you did last night, you’ll overdo it. Take my word for that.”

I had come to the office that morning determined to let every one see I was ashamed of my conduct; but these insinuations, and the half flattery implied in them, tempted me to join the conversation.

“It was you, not I, proposed ringing the bells,” I said.

They all laughed, as if this were a joke.

“Well, that’s a cool one if you like,” replied Doubleday. “Why, it was all we could do to keep you from wrenching off the knockers as well, wasn’t it, Crow?”

“Never thought we’d keep him from it,” said Crow. “If the bobby hadn’t turned up, I do believe he’d have wanted to smash the windows also.”

“You’re making all this up,” I said, half amused, half angry, and almost beginning to wonder whether all that was being said of me was true.

“Not likely,” said Doubleday; “the fact is, I couldn’t have believed it of you if I hadn’t seen it. By the way, Wallop, is it true the Field-Marshal was run in?”

“No, was he?” exclaimed Wallop, and Crow, and I, all in a breath.

“Well, I passed by Daly’s this morning, and he told me he hadn’t been home all night, and he supposed he’d have to go and bail him out.”

“What a game!” cried Wallop.

“You’d call it a game if you had to hand out forty shillings, or take a week,” replied Doubleday. “A nice expensive game this of yours, Master Batchelor. It’ll cost you more than all your eel-pies, and lobsters, and flash toggery put together.”

Fancy, reader, my amazement and horror at all this! It might be a joke to all the rest, but it was anything but a joke to me. Instead of the Field-Marshal it might have been I who was caught last night and locked up in a police cell, and what then would have become of me? My “friends” would all have laughed at it as a joke; but to me, I knew full well, it would have been disgrace and ruin!

I was in no humour to pursue the conversation, particularly as Jack Smith entered at that moment, composed and solemn as ever, without even a glance at me.

My only escape from wretched memories and uncomfortable reflections was in hard work, and that day I worked desperately. I was engaged in checking some very elaborate accounts under Doubleday’s direction the whole day. It was a task which Wallop, to whom it fell by rights, shirked and passed on to me, greatly to my indignation, a week ago. But now it proved a very relief. The harder I worked, the easier my mind became, and the more difficult the work appeared, the more I rejoiced to have the tackling of it.

Our firm had received over a large cargo of miscellaneous goods from India, which they were about to trans-ship to South America; and what I had to do was first of all to reduce the value of the goods as they appeared in Indian currency to their exact English value, and after adding certain charges and profits, invoice them again in Spanish money.

“A nice spicy little bit of conjuring,” as Doubleday described it, who, rackety fellow as he was, always warmed up to business difficulties.

He and I agreed to stay and finish the thing off after the others had gone, an arrangement I was very glad for all reasons to fall in with.

We worked away hammer-and-tongs for two hours (for it was a very lengthy and intricate operation), exchanging no words except such as had reference to our common task.

At last it was completed. The calculations and additions had all been doubly checked, and the fair copies and their duplicates written out, and then, for the first time, we were at leisure to think and speak of other topics.

Few things tend to draw two fellows together like hard work in common, and Doubleday and I, with the consciousness of our task well and honestly accomplished, found ourselves on specially friendly terms with one another.

Despite his extravagance and mischief, there had always been a good-nature and a frankness about the head clerk which had made me like him better than most of his companions either in or out of the office. Although he had never been backward to lead others into trouble, he had usually stopped short before any harm was done. Even in the persecutions of Jack Smith, many of which he had instigated himself, there was never any of the spite on his side which characterised the conduct of Crow, Wallop, and Harris. And although he never professed to admire my friend, he never denied him fair play when he was roused to resistance.

“Well,” said he, shutting up the inkpot, and throwing our rough copies of the invoice into the waste-paper basket, “that’s a good job done. You’re not a bad hand at a big grind, young Batchelor. Crow or Wallop would have left me to do it all by myself.”

Of course I was pleased at the compliment. I replied, “I rather enjoyed it.”

“Well, there’s not another fellow in the office would do the same,” said he.

Wasn’t there? I thought I knew better. “I think there’s one other fellow,” I said, hesitatingly. “Eh—oh, Bull’s-eye! Yes, you’re right there, and he’d have knocked it off smarter than you’ve done too, my boy.” There was a pause after this. We had both accidentally got on to an awkward topic. Doubleday was the first to speak.

“I say, Batchelor,” he went on, quite nervously for him, “excuse my saying it, but it’s my opinion you’re a bit of a fool, do you know!”

This unexpected announcement, coming from this unexpected quarter, naturally astonished me. “What do you mean?”

“Oh,” said he, still rather embarrassed, “it’s no concern of mine at all, but when you came here about a year ago you were rather a nice boy.”

“Well,” said I, not knowing exactly whether to be pleased or vexed.

“Well, you’re not a nice boy now, you know!” I said nothing. I knew he was right, and his abrupt words struck home harder than he thought for. When Jack Smith, the night before, had called me a liar and a coward, I had fired up angrily. But when the rackety Doubleday now told me I wasn’t a nice boy, I somehow felt a sudden pang of shame and humility that was quite new to me.

“I suppose you’re going to flare up,” continued Doubleday, noticing my silence, “when you’ve pumped up the words. I’ll wait.”

“No, no,” said I, not looking up. “Go on.”

“It doesn’t concern me a bit how you and your precious friend get on,” pursued my companion, cutting a quill pen, “and I see you’re not in the same boat now by any means. But that’s no reason why you should make a regular all-round ass of yourself in the way you’re doing.”

I looked up inquiringly. “I don’t quite understand,” I said, meekly.

“Well, I suppose you don’t exactly imagine you’ve anything to be proud of over last night’s performances?” said he.

“No, I was ashamed of myself for that,” I said.

“Humph! I suppose you’d come again to-night and do the same thing if I asked you?”

I hesitated. “I don’t think—” I began, but there pulled up. I knew well enough I would go if he asked me.

“Of course you would,” said he; “you’d go anywhere. Just because a fellow a peg above you asks you, you’ll go and make a fool of yourself and risk every chance you’ve got, because you’ve not the pluck to make yourself disagreeable!”

How true it all was! Yet why had I never seen it before?

“I’m afraid—I’m sure you’re right,” I said.

“I don’t flatter myself,” went on Doubleday, beginning on a new quill, “I’m very particular. I dare say I’m about as rackety a lot as any you’d pick up near here. But somehow I’ve no fancy for seeing a fellow going to the dogs out of sheer folly. It spoils my pleasure, in fact.”

“I have been a fool, I know,” I said.

“Of course you have, and so you will be unless you kick. Well, I’m off now,” added he, taking up his hat. “I dare say I’ve offended you, and you’ll call me an officious humbug. I may be a fool for concerning myself about a young muff like you; but anyhow I’ve told you what I think of you. So good-night, young un.”

He left abruptly, before even I could say good-night, or thank him.

That night, as I walked home solitary, I felt more humble and less satisfied with myself than I had done for many a month.

One good sign was that I was by no means disposed this time to launch out into the extravagant resolutions to turn over a new leaf which had marked my former repentances. In fact, I said to myself, I won’t resolve to do anything; but, God helping me, do something I will. And the first thing to do would be to get back my old friend Smith. For since I lost him everything had gone wrong with me.

And yet, now, how was it possible for me even to speak to him?

In the midst of these reflections I reached Style Street, where I suddenly became aware that something unusual was taking place. A small crowd was collected round the spot where Billy was usually in the habit of pursuing his business, and loud voices proclaimed that the occasion was one of anything but peace.

Curiosity tempted me to draw near, and a strange sight met my view as I did so. The central figures of the group were Billy and his “old gal,” whom I recognised at once as the woman who had so vehemently ill-used him in the court that memorable evening weeks ago. She was a sad spectacle, more than half drunk, with every trace of tenderness and womanliness stamped out of her features.

If I had not recognised her by her appearance I should probably have done so by her occupation at that moment, for she was engaged in chastising her offspring with all the vehemence and all the cruelty of her former performances. But in the present case there was a difference. Billy, instead of taking his castigation meekly, as before, was violently resisting by shout and kick the attentions of his relative. This it was which appeared to render the transaction so particularly interesting to the onlookers.

“Go it, young bantam-cock,” some one was crying as I approached, “let her have it.”

“Give it up, do you hear, or I’ll murder you!” shrieked the woman.

Billy replied nothing, but continued fighting tooth and nail. I never saw a child of his age so desperately active. He struggled not so much to escape his mother’s blows aimed at himself, as to elude the clutches she made at a necktie he wore round his throat, which I at first glance recognised as having formerly belonged to Jack Smith.

This article of toilet the woman seemed as determined on having as her son was resolved on keeping. She probably considered it of some value—enough, at any rate, to pawn for drink; and Billy’s violent refusal to give it up only roused her the more to secure it.

It was a revolting spectacle to watch, this struggle between mother and child. The one sparing neither blow nor curse, the other silent and active as a cat, watching every movement of his adversary, and ready for the slightest chance of escape. The crowd, careless of the rights of the case, cheered on both, and only interfered when the woman, having secured the boy in her grip, bade fair to bring the interesting encounter to too abrupt an end.

I dared not interfere, even if I had been able, but was forced to stand wedged up in the crowd to watch the issue of the struggle. And it was not long in coming. Amid loud cheers from the onlookers, Billy contrived for the seventh or eighth time to wriggle himself free from the clutches of his well-nigh frantic assailant, dealing her at the same time a blow on the arm with the blacking-brush he had all along retained in his hand. The surprise and pain of the blow, the jeers of the bystanders, and the tipsy rage of the woman combined to drive her nearly mad. With a fearful yell and threat she literally flung herself in wild fury upon her little victim. But the wary Billy was too quick for her. Stepping lightly aside, he eluded her reach, and left her to fall forward with a heavy crash on the pavement amid the howls and cheers of the brutal crowd.

Quick as thought the boy snatched up his box and brushes, and dived head-first into the crowd just where I stood. There was a cry of “Stop him!”

“Fetch him back!” on all hands, and one young fellow near me actually made a grab at the poor boy and caught him by the arm. It was no time for ceremony or parley. It had been all I could do to stand still and watch the sickening spectacle. Now it should not be my fault if, just to please a party of blackguards, the whole thing was to be repeated.

With an angry shout of “Let him go!” I sprang at the fellow and struck him full on the chest. He dropped Billy as if he had been red-hot iron, and turning with livid face to me, stared at me for a single moment, and then tearing off his coat and clenching his fists rushed at me.

For all I know he might have annihilated me, but at that moment arose a cry of “Police!” at the sound of which the crowd dispersed like beetles before a candle, my antagonist being among the first to go, leaving me and Billy alone on the scene, from which even the tipsy woman had vanished.

It was not till the coast was all clear that Billy deposited his box or noticed my presence. The exciting scene which was just over seemed in no way to have disturbed the young gentleman’s equanimity. He favoured me with one of his most affable grins and saluted me with one of his habitual somersaults as he said, “Shine ’e boots, master? T’other bloke he was ’ere at ten past seving.”

“Hadn’t you better go somewhere else?” I said. “Your mother will be back after you.”

“Well,” said Billy, in his usual touchy way, “she ain’t no concern of yourn.”

“Aren’t you afraid of her hurting you?”

“’Urting me!” cried the boy, in tones of the utmost contempt, as if he had not been half-murdered once a week for the last eight years. “No fear! Ain’t you funny? But she ain’t a-going to collar this ’ere choker; not if I knows it!” said he, taking off his new article of decoration with a flourish and holding it up.

The well-worn and used-up necktie did not certainly look worth the battle that had been waged over it.

“Why are you so particular about this?” I asked, half guessing beforehand what the reply would be.

“Pertikler!” he cried, “why, that there bloke give me this ’ere!”

Nothing evidently could have been more conclusive to Billy’s mind. I felt almost jealous to find how much truer Jack’s new friend was than his old one.

“Was he here long this evening?” I asked, presently.

“Yaas; he was jawing nigh on half a’ hour, he was, while I gi’en him a shine. But, bless you, them boots of his is pretty nigh ’andy wore out, and I tell him so. ‘Never mind, Billy,’ says he; ‘I’ll be getting a new pair soon when I’ve got the money saved,’ says he. ‘I mean to get a good strong pair,’ says he, ‘double-soled and plates on the ’eels, my boy,’ he says, ‘and you shall polish them up every night for me.’ ‘That I will,’ says I. Bless you, governor, that there bloke’ll ’ave the shiniest pair of boots in town.”

It was a sight to see the little grimy face glow as he expatiated on the grateful theme.

“I suppose he didn’t—did he say anything about me?” I asked, hesitatingly.

“Yaas,” said Billy. “Says I to him, ‘So t’other bloke,’ (meaning you), ‘has lagged off,’ I says. ‘Yes,’ says he, ‘we don’t live together no more?’ says he. ‘I know all about it,’ says I; ‘I seen the animal,’ (meaning you), says I, ‘o’ Toosday.’ ‘Did you?’ says he. ‘Yaas,’ I says, ‘and nice and boozy he was,’ I says, ‘at eleving o’clock o’ night,’ I says. ‘Did he say anything about me?’ he says; and I told him, and he says he must go off, he says, ’cos he didn’t want to be ’ere, he says, when you come. He do talk beautiful, he does.”

I went on my lonely way more humbled than ever, but more determined, if possible, to recover my lost friend; yet thinking little or nothing of the greater and ever-present Friend against whom I had sinned so grievously.

But it was not to be for many days yet.

Smith always avoided me at the office in the same marked way, so that it was utterly impossible to make any advances to a reconciliation. The idea of writing to him occurred to me more than once, but the thought that he might throw my letter into the fire unread deterred me. No, the only thing was to bear my humiliation and wait for a chance.

Doubleday’s lecture had wrought a considerable change in my habits. Although I found it impossible all at once to give up consorting with “the usual lot,” especially those of them (now not a few), to whom I owed money, I was yet a good deal more chary of my complaisance, and less influenced by their example in ordinary matters. I succeeded, greatly to my own satisfaction and much to every one else’s surprise, in making myself distinctly disagreeable on more than one occasion, which Doubleday looked upon as a very healthy sign, and which, though it involved me in a good deal of persecution at the time, did not seriously affect my position as a member of their honourable society.

How I wished I might once more call Jack Smith my friend, and cast off once for all these other shallow acquaintances!

During these wretched weeks Billy became my chief comforter, for he of all people was the only one I could talk to about Jack.

I always arranged my walks by Style Street so as to pass his “place of business” after the time when I knew Jack would have left, and then eagerly drank in all the news I could hear of my lost friend.

One evening, a week after the adventure with Billy and his mother just recorded, the boy greeted me with most extraordinary and mysterious demonstrations of importance and glee. He walked at least half a dozen times round his box on his hands before he would say a word, and then indulged in such a series of winks and grimaces as almost drove me into impatience.

“Whatever’s the matter with you?” I asked, when this performance had been going on for some time “Oh my!—ain’t it a game?” he chuckled.

“What’s a game?” I demanded.

“Why—oh, ain’t you a flat, though?—why, them there boots!”

“What boots? Why can’t you talk sense?”

“Why, that there bloke’s boots. When I was a-shinin’ of ’em, if the sole of one on ’em don’t come clean off!” he cried, with a grin.

“I don’t see anything so very amusing in that,” I replied.

“He’s gone off to get ’em sewed on,” continued the boy, beaming all over; “and he’s a-coming back this way to show me. Bless you, they’ll never sew that there sole on. The upper wouldn’t hold it—you see if it does.”

“He will have to get a new pair,” I said.

“Why, he ain’t got the browns. He’s a-saving up, but it’ll be a month afore he’s got the brass.”

Here Billy positively laughed, so that I felt strongly inclined to give him a box on the ear for his levity.

“And it’s been a-rainin’ all day,” continued he, jocularly “and the streets is all one marsh of muck.”

“Poor fellow!” said I. “I wish I could lend him a pair of mine.”

“Ga on!” cried Billy, scornfully, dropping on his knees before his box.

“I say, guv’nor,” said he, in a sudden mysterious tone, “can you keep it mum?”

“Yes—what?” I asked.

He looked carefully up the street and then down, and then all round. No one was near. He moved so as to let the light of a neighbouring lamp-post shine full on the pavement, as with jubilant face he lifted up his box and disclosed—a pair of new double-soled lace boots!

“Them’s for him,” he said, in an excited whisper.

“For him? Why, Billy, wherever did they come from?”

His grimy face turned up to mine all aglow with pride and triumph as he answered, “Stole ’em!”

Chapter Twenty Four.

How I found that Hope deferred makes the Heart sick.

The reader may picture my horror and astonishment on discovering Billy’s secret. And the strangest part of it was that the graceless youth appeared to be utterly unconscious that he had done anything wrong. On the contrary, his jubilant face and triumphant voice showed plainly that he considered he had done a fine—a splendid thing.

I endeavoured to reason with him; he flared up as if I were trying to defraud Jack Smith of his new boots. I warned him of the punishment that would follow if he were caught. He gloried in the risk he ran. I told him it was wicked to steal—even for other persons. He retorted, “It wasn’t no concern of mine.”

Altogether it seemed hopeless to disenchant him with his exploit, and I therefore left him, wholly at a loss to make out this strange puzzle of a boy.

I was still more perplexed when, next morning, Jack Smith appeared at the office wearing the identical new pair of boots which had been the cause of all my horror!

I waited impatiently for the hours to pass, when I should be at liberty to pay my usual visit to Billy.

He was sitting there grimly, unlike his usual manner, evidently expecting me.

“Well,” said I, “what have you done with those boots?”

“’Tain’t no concern of yourn!”

“But he was wearing them to-day.”

“In course he was!” said Billy, brightening a little.

“Did you tell him you had—had stolen them?”

“Yaas,” replied the boy, gruffly.

“And he took them?” said I, in astonishment.

“Ain’t you saw them on ’im?” demanded he, evidently disliking this catechism.

“Billy,” said I, “I can’t understand it.”

“You ain’t no call to!” was the polite reply; “’tain’t no concern or yourn.”

“It is my concern if other people are robbed,” I said. “Don’t you know, if I chose, I could fetch a policeman and get you locked up?”

“In course you could! Why don’t yer?”

Was there ever such a hopeless young scamp?

“Whose shop did you take them from?” I asked.

“Trotter’s, aside of our court. Go and tell him!” replied he, scornfully.

“How would you like any one to steal away one of your brushes?”

“I’d give ’em a topper!”

“But that’s just what you’ve done to Trotter,” I argued.

“Well, why don’t you fetch him to give me a topper?” he replied.

I gave it up. There was no arguing with a boy like this. If there had been, there would have been no further opportunity that night, for as I stood by, puzzling in my mind what to say to bring home to the graceless youth a sense of his iniquity, he began picking up his brushes and shouldering his box.

“Where are you going so early?” I asked.

“Don’t you like to know?” retorted he.

“Yes, I would.”

“Well, if you must know, I’m a-going to the racket school!”

“The what?” I exclaimed.

“Racket school.”

“Oh! ragged school, you mean. Where is it? I didn’t know you went. They ought to teach you better there than to steal, Billy,” I said.

“Oh!” replied the boy, with a touch of scorn in his voice, “that there bloke’s a-going to learn me, not you!”

“What! does Smith teach at the ragged school, then?”

“In course he do! Do you suppose I’d go else?”

And off he trotted, leaving me utterly bewildered.

Jack Smith teaching in a ragged school! Jack Smith wearing a pair of boots that he knew were stolen! What could I think?

At any rate, I was resolved to be no party to Billy’s dishonesty. At any cost, since I had not the heart to deliver up the culprit to justice, I must see that the victim was repaid. He might never have noticed the theft; but whether or no, I should have no rest till his loss had been made good.

It was no time to mince matters. My own funds, as the reader knows, were in a bad state. I owed far more than I could save in half a year. But I had still my uncle’s half-sovereign in my pocket, which I had hitherto, despite all my difficulties, kept untouched. An emergency had now arisen, thought I, when surely I should be justified in using it. As long as I remained a party to Billy’s dishonesty I was, I felt, little better than a thief myself, and that I could not endure, however bad in other respects I might have been.

I went straight to Trotter’s shop. A jovial, red-faced woman stood at the door, just about to shut up for the night.

“I want to see Mr Trotter,” said I.

“Mrs Trotter, you mean, I suppose?” said the woman. “I’m the lady.”

“Can I speak to you for a minute?” I said.

“Yes—half an hour if you like. What is it?”

“It’s something private.”

“Bless us, are you going to offer to marry me, or what?” exclaimed she; “come, what is it?”

“Have you—that is, did you—the fact is, I don’t know whether you happen to have missed a pair of boots,” I said, falteringly.

She made a grab at my arm.

“So you’re the thief, are you? A nice trade you’ve started at, young master, so I can tell you!”

“Oh,” I cried, in the utmost alarm and terror, “you’re quite wrong, you are indeed. I never touched them—I only—I—I know who did, that’s all.”

Mrs Trotter still held me fast.

“Oh, you know who did, do you?”

“Yes—he’s a—” I was going to say “shoeblack,” but I stopped myself in time, and said, “a little boy.”

She released her grasp, greatly to my relief, and waited for me to go on.

“And I really don’t think he knows any better,” said I, recovering my confidence.

“Well,” she said, eyeing me sharply.

“Well,” I said, “I know the proper thing would be to give him up to the police.”

“That’s what I’d do to you in a minute, if you’d stolen them,” she said.

“I’ve rather an interest in the little boy,” I said nervously, “and I thought if you wouldn’t mind telling me what the boots came to, I’d ask you to let me pay for them. I don’t think he’ll do it again.”

“Well, it’s a very queer thing,” said the woman; “what a popular young thief your friend must be! Why, I had a young gentleman here yesterday evening asking the very same thing of me!”

“What!” I exclaimed, “was it Jack Smith?”

“I don’t know his name, but he’d a pair of black eyes that would astonish you.”

“That’s him, that’s him!” I cried. “And he wanted to pay for the boots?”

“He did pay for them. I shall make my fortune out of that pair of boots,” added she, laughing.

This, then, explained his wearing the boots that morning. How quick I had been to suspect him of far different conduct!

“You’d better keep your money for the next time he steals something,” observed Mrs Trotter, rather enjoying my astonishment; “he’s likely to be a costly young treat to you at this rate. I hope the next party he robs will be as lazy about her rights as me.”

I dropped my uncle’s half-sovereign back into my purse, with the rather sad conviction that after all I was not the only honest and righteous person in the world.

The next morning, on my arrival at Hawk Street rather before the time (I had taken to being early at the office, partly to avoid arriving there at the same time as Smith, and partly to have the company of young Larkins, of postage-stamp celebrity, in my walk from Beadle Square), I found Doubleday already there in a state of great perturbation.

“What do you think,” he cried, almost before I entered the office—“what do you think they’ve done? I knew that young puppy’s coming was no good to us! Here have I been here twelve years next Michaelmas, and he not a year, and blest if I haven’t got to hand over the petty cash to my lord, because old Merrett wants the dear child to get used to a sense of responsibility in the business! Sense of rot, I call it!”

It certainly did seem hard lines. Doubleday, as long as I had been at Hawk Street, had always been the custodian of all loose cash paid into the office, which he carefully guarded and accounted for, handing it over regularly week by week to be paid into the bank.

It is never pleasant when a fellow has held an office of trust to have it coolly taken from him and handed to another. In this case no one would suspect it meant any lack of confidence; for Doubleday, even his enemies admitted, was as honest as the Bank of England; but it meant elevating another at his expense, which did not seem exactly fair.

“If the darling’s such a big pot in the office,” growled Doubleday, “they’d better make him head clerk at once, and let me run his errands for him.”

“Never mind,” said I, “it’ll be so much less work for you.”

“Yes, and a pretty mess the accounts will get into, to make up for it.”

Hawkesbury entered at this moment, smiling most beautifully.

“How punctual you two are!” said he.

“Need to be punctual,” growled Doubleday, “when I’ve got to hand you over the petty cash.”

“Oh!” said Hawkesbury; “the petty cash? My uncle was saying something about my keeping it. I think it’s a pity he couldn’t let it stay where it was; you’re so much more used to it than I am. Besides, I’ve plenty of work to do without it.”

“I suppose I shall get some of your work to do for you,” said Doubleday—“that is, if I’m competent!”

Hawkesbury laughed softly, as if it were a joke, and Doubleday relapsed into surly silence.

It was still some minutes before the other clerks were due. Hawkesbury used the interval in conversing amiably with me in a whisper.

“I’m afraid Doubleday’s put out,” said he. “You know, he’s a very good sort of fellow; but, between you and me, don’t you think he’s a trifle too unsteady?”

What could I say? I certainly could not call Doubleday steady, as a rule, and yet I disliked to have to assent to Hawkesbury’s question. “He’s very steady in business,” I said.

“Yes; but at other times I’m afraid he’s not,” said Hawkesbury. “Not that I’m blaming him. But of course, when a fellow’s extravagant, and all that, it is a temptation, isn’t it?”

“Do you mean a temptation to be dishonest?”

“Well, it’s rather a strong way of putting it. I don’t suppose for a moment Doubleday is not perfectly trustworthy; no more does my uncle.”

“I should think not,” said I, rather warmly.

“Of course not,” said he, sweetly; “but you know, Batchelor, prevention is better than cure, and it seems the kindest thing, doesn’t it, to put temptation quite out of a fellow’s reach when one can?”

“But,” observed I, “it seems to me you are taking it out of Doubleday’s reach and putting it into your own.”

For an instant a shade of vexation crossed his face, but directly afterwards he laughed again in his usual amused manner.

“You forget,” said he, “I live at home, and haven’t the chance of following Doubleday’s example, even if I wished to. In fact, I’m a domestic character.”

He seemed to forget that he had frequently accepted Doubleday’s hospitality and joined in the festivities of the “usual lot.”

“I thought you lived at your uncle’s?” said I.

“Oh, no! My father’s rectory is in Lambeth. But we’re just going to move into the City. I don’t enjoy the prospect, I can assure you! But I say, how are you and your friend Smith getting on now?”

He was always asking me about my friend Smith.

“The same as usual,” said I.

“That’s a pity! He really seems very unreasonable, considering he has so little to be proud of.”

“It’s I that have got little to be proud of,” replied I.

“Really, Batchelor, you are quite wrong there. I think it’s very generous the way you have always stuck to him—with certainly not much encouragement.”

“Well,” said I, “I shall have another attempt to make it up with him.”

Hawkesbury mused a bit, and then said, smilingly, “Of course, it’s a very fine thing of you; but do you know, Batchelor, I’m not sure that you are wise in appearing to be in such a hurry?”

“What do you mean?” I said.

“I mean, I shall be as glad as any one to see you two friends again: but if you seem too eager about it, I fancy you would only be demeaning yourself, and giving him a fresh chance of repulsing you. My advice as a friend is, wait a bit. As long as he sees you unhappy about it he will have a crow over you. Let him see you aren’t so greatly afflicted, and then, take my word for it, he’ll come a good deal more than half way to meet you.”

There seemed to be something in this specious advice. I might, after all, be defeating my own ends by seeming too anxious to make it up with Jack Smith, and so making a reconciliation more difficult in the end. I felt inclined, at any rate, to give it a trial.

But the weeks that followed were wretched weeks. I heard daily and regularly from Billy all the news I could gather of my friend, but before Smith himself I endeavoured to appear cheerful and easy in mind. It was a poor show. How could I seem cheerful when every day I was feeling my loss more and more?

My only friends at this time were Hawkesbury and Billy and young Larkins. The former continued to encourage me to persevere in my behaviour before Smith, predicting that it would be sure, sooner or later, to make our reconciliation certain. But at present it did not look much like it. If I appeared cheerful and easy-minded, so did Smith. The signs of relenting which I looked for were certainly not to be discovered, and, so far from meeting me half way, the more unconcerned about him I seemed, the more unconcerned he seemed about me.

“Of course he’ll be like that at first,” said Hawkesbury, when I confided my disappointment one day to him, “but it won’t last long. He’s not so many friends in the world that he can afford to throw you over.”

And so I waited week after week. I saw him daily, but our eyes scarcely ever met. Only when I glanced at him furtively I thought him looking paler and thinner even than usual, and longed still more intensely to call him my friend and know why it was.

“Most likely he’s fretting,” said Hawkesbury, “and will soon give in. It’s a wonder to me how he’s held out so long.”

“Unless he speaks to me soon, I’ll risk everything and speak to him.”

“I can quite understand your anxiety,” said my counsellor, “but I really wouldn’t be too impatient.”

I tried to find out from Billy the reason of Jack’s altered looks.

“Yaas,” said he, in response to my inquiry whether he had heard if my friend was ill—“yaas, he do look dicky. ‘Governor,’ says I, ‘what’s up?’ I says. ‘Up,’ says he, ‘what do you mean by it?’ says he. ‘Go on,’ says I, ‘as if you didn’t know you was queer!’ ‘I ain’t queer,’ says he. ‘Oh, no, ain’t you,’ says I; ‘what do you want to look so green about the mazard for, then?’ says I. ‘Oh, that’s nothing,’ says he; ‘reading late at night, that’s what that is,’ says he. ‘Turn it up,’ says I. ‘So I will,’ says he, ‘when my Sam’s over,’ says he. Bless you, governor, I’d like to give that there Sam a topper, so I would.”

So, then, he was reading for an examination! This paleness, after all, did not come from fretting on my account, but because he had found an occupation which drove me from his thoughts evening after evening!

I felt more hopeless of recovering my friend than ever.

“Do you go to the ragged school still?” I asked.

“Yaas, a Fridays. I say, governor, look here.”

He dipped his finger into his blacking-pot, and, after cleaning the flagstone on which he knelt with his old hat, proceeded laboriously and slowly to trace an S upon it.

“There,” he cried, when the feat was accomplished, “what do you think of that? That’s a ess for Mr Smith, and a proper bloke he is. He do teach you to-rights, so I let you know, he do.”

“What else does he teach you besides your letters?”

“Oh, about a bloke called Cain as give ’is pal a topper, and—”

He stopped abruptly, as he noticed the smile I could not restrain, and then added, in his offended tone, “I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you. ’Tain’t no concern of yourn.”

I knew Billy well enough by this time to be sure it was no use, after once offending him, trying to cajole him back into a good-humour, so I left him.

So the wretched weeks passed on, and I almost wished myself back at Stonebridge House. There at least I had some society and some friends. Now, during those lonely evenings at Mrs Nash’s I had positively no one—except young Larkins.

That cheery youth was a standing rebuke to me. He had come up to town a year ago, a fresh, innocent boy; and a fresh, innocent boy he remained still. He kept his diary regularly, and wrote home like clock-work, and chirruped over his postage-stamp album, and laughed over his storybooks in a way which it did one’s heart good to see. And yet it made my heart sore. Why should he be so happy and I not? He wasn’t, so I believe, a cleverer boy than I was. Certainly he wasn’t getting on better than I was, for I had now had my third rise in salary, and he still only got what he started with. And he possessed no more friends at Beadle Square than I did. Why ever should he always be so jolly?

I knew, though I was loth to admit it. His conscience was as easy as his spirits. There was no one he had ever wronged, and a great many to whom he had done kind actions. When any one suggested to him to do what he considered wrong, it was the easiest thing in the world for him to refuse flatly, and say boldly why. If everybody else went one way, and he thought it not the right way, it cost him not an effort to turn and go his own way, even if he went it alone. Fellows didn’t like him. They called him a prig—a sanctimonious young puppy. What cared he? If to do what was right manfully in the face of wrong, to persevere in the right in the face of drawbacks, constituted a prig, then Larkins was a prig of the first water, and he didn’t care what fellows thought of him, but chirruped away over his postage-stamp album as before, and read his books, as happy as a king.

It was in this boy’s society that during those wretched weeks I found a painful consolation. He was constantly reminding me of what I was not; but for all that I felt he was a better companion than the heroes with whom I used to associate, and with whom I still occasionally consorted. He knew nothing of my trouble, and thought I was the crossest-grained, slowest growler in existence. But since I chose his company, and seemed glad to have him beside me, he was delighted.

“I say,” said he suddenly one evening, as we were engaged in experimenting with a small steam-engine he had lately become the proud possessor of, “I saw your old friend Smith to-day!”

“Where?” I asked.

“Why, down Drury Lane. I heard of a new Russian stamp that was to be had cheap in a shop there, and while I was in buying it he came in.”

“Was he buying stamps too?”

“No; he lives in a room over the shop. Not a nice hole, I should fancy. Didn’t you know he was there?”

“No,” I said.

“Oh, you should go and see the place. He’d much better come back here, tell him. But I thought you saw one another every day?” he added, in his simple way.

“Did he say anything to you?” I asked, avoiding the question.

“Yes. I asked him how he was getting on, and he said very well; and I asked him what he thought of the Russian stamp; and he said if I liked he could get me a better specimen at his office. Isn’t he a brick? and he’s promised me a jolly Turkish one, too, that I haven’t got.”

“Was that all?” I asked. “I mean all he said?”

“Yes—oh, and I asked if he’d got any message for you, and he said no. Look, there—it’s going! I say, isn’t it a stunning little engine? I mean to make it work a little pump I’ve got in the greenhouse at home. It’s just big enough.”

Any message for me? No! Was it worth trying for any longer? I thought, as once more I crept solitary and disappointed to bed.

But the answer was nearer than I thought for.

Chapter Twenty Five.