Chapter Ten.“Will you walk into my Parlour?” said the Spider to the Fly.The two days which followed the despatch of the letter to “Omega” were long and anxious ones for Reginald Cruden. It would have been a great relief to him had he felt free to talk the matter over with Horace; but somehow that word “confidential” in the advertisement deterred him. For all that, he made a point of leaving the paper containing it in his brother’s way, if by any chance the invitation to an additional £50 a year might meet his eye. Had it done so, it is doubtful whether Reginald would have been pleased, for he knew that if it came to selecting one of the two, Horace would probably pass for quite as respectable and considerably more intelligent a young man than himself. Still, he had no right to stand in his brother’s way if fate ordained that he too should be attracted by the advertisement. He therefore left the paper lying conspicuously about with the advertisement sheet turned toward the beholder.Horace, however, had too much of theRocketin his business hours to crave for a further perusal of it during his leisure. He kicked it unceremoniously out of his way the first time he encountered it; and when Reginald saw it next it was in a mangled condition under the stairs in the suspicious company of the servant-girl’s cinder-shovel.On the second morning, when he arrived at his work, a letter lay on his case with the Liverpool postmark, addressed R. Cruden, Esquire,RocketOffice, London. In his excitement and haste to learn its contents it never occurred to him to notice the unexpected compliment conveyed in the word “Esquire”; and he might have remained for ever in blissful ignorance of the fact, had not his left-hand neighbour, the satirical Mr Barber, considered the occasion a good one for a few flashes of wit.“’Ullo, Esquire, ’ow are you, Esquire? There is somebody knows you, then. Liverpool, too! That’s where all the chaps who rob the till go to. R. Cruden, Esquire—my eye! What’s the use of putting any more than ‘London’ on the envelope—such a well-known character as you? Stuck-up idiot!”To this address Reginald attended sufficiently to discover that it was not worth listening to; after which he did not even hear the concluding passages of his neighbour’s declamation, being absorbed in far more interesting inquiries. He tore the envelope open and hurriedly read—“Sir,—Your favour is to hand, and in reply we beg to say we shall be glad to arrange an interview. One of our directors will be in town on Monday next, and can see you between one and two o’clock at Weaver’s Hotel. Be good enough to treat this and all further communications as strictly confidential.—We are, Sir, yours faithfully,—“The Select Agency Corporation.“P.S.—Ask at Weaver’s Hotel for Mr Medlock.“Liverpool.”The welcome contents of this short note fairly staggered him. If the tone of the advertisement had been encouraging, that of this letter was positively convincing. It was concise, business-like, grammatical and courteous. Since his trouble Reginald had never been addressed by any one in the terms of respect conveyed in this communication. Furthermore, the appointment being between one and two—the dinner-hour—he would be able to keep it without difficulty or observation, particularly as Weaver’s Hotel was not a stone’s throw from theRocketoffice. Then again, the fact of his letter being from a “corporation” gratified and encouraged him. A Select Agency Corporation was not the sort of company to do things meanly or inconsiderately. They were doubtless a select body of men themselves, and they required the services of select servants; and it was perfectly reasonable that in an affair like this, whichmightlead to nothing, strict mutual confidence should be observed. Supposing in the end he should see reason to decline to connect himself with the Corporation (Reginald liked to think this possible, though he felt sure it was not probable), why, if he had said much about it previously, itmightbe to the prejudice of the Corporation! Finally, he thought the name “Medlock” agreeable, and was generally highly gratified with the letter, and wished devoutly Monday would come round quickly.The one drawback to his satisfaction was that he was still as far as ever from knowing in what direction his respectable and intelligent services were likely to be required. Monday came at last. When he went up on the Saturday to receive his wages he had fully expected to learn Mr Durfy’s intentions with regard to him, and was duly surprised when that gentleman actually handed him his money without a word, and with the faintest suspicion of a smile.“He’s got a nailer on you, old man, and no mistake,” said Gedge, dolefully. “I’d advise you to keep your eye open for a new berth, if you get the chance; and, I say, if you can only hear of one for two!”This last appeal went to Reginald’s heart, and he inwardly resolved, if Mr Medlock turned out to be as amiable a man as he took him for, to put in a word on Gedge’s behalf as well as his own at the coming interview.The dinner-bell that Monday tolled solemnly in Reginald’s ears as he put on a clean collar and brushed his hair previously to embarking on his journey to Weaver’s Hotel. What change might not have taken place in his lot before that same bell summoned him once more to work? He left theRocketa needy youth of £47 10 shillings a year. Was he to return to it passing rich of £97 10 shillings?Weaver’s Hotel was a respectable quiet resort for country visitors in London, and Reginald, as he stood in its homely entrance hall, felt secretly glad that the Corporation selected a place like this for its London headquarters rather than one of the more showy but less respectable hotels or restaurants with which the neighbourhood abounded.Mr Medlock was in his room, the waiter said, and Mr Cruden was to step up. He did step up, and was ushered into a little sitting-room, where a middle-aged gentleman stood before the fire-place reading the paper and softly humming to himself as he did so.“Mr Cruden, sir,” said the waiter.“Ah! Mr Cruden, good morning. Take a seat. John, I shall be ready for lunch in about ten-minutes.”Reginald, with the agitating conviction that his fate would be sealed one way or another in ten-minutes, obeyed, and darted a nervous glance at his new acquaintance.He rather liked the looks of him. He looked a comfortable, well-to-do gentleman, with rather a handsome face, and a manner by no means disheartening. Mr Medlock in turn indulged in a careful survey of the boy as he sat shyly before him trying to look self-possessed, but not man of the world enough to conceal his anxiety or excitement.“Let me see,” said Mr Medlock, putting his hands in his pocket and leaning against the mantel-piece, “you replied to the advertisement, didn’t you?”“Yes, sir,” said Reginald.“And what made you think you would suit us?”“Well, sir,” stammered Reginald, “you wanted respectable intelligent young men—and—and I thought I—that is, I hoped I might answer that description.”Mr Medlock took one hand out of his pocket and stroked his chin.“Have you been in the printing trade long?”“Only a few weeks, sir.”“What were you doing before that?”Reginald flushed.“I was at school, sir—at Wilderham.”“Wilderham? Why, that’s a school for gentlemen’s sons.”“My father was a gentleman, sir,” said the boy, proudly.“He’s dead then?” said Mr Medlock. “That is sad. But did he leave nothing behind him?”“He died suddenly, sir,” said Reginald, speaking with an effort, “and left scarcely anything.”“Did he die in debt? You must excuse these questions, Mr Cruden,” added the gentleman, with an amiable smile; “it is necessary to ask them or I would spare you the trouble.”“He did die in debt,” said Reginald, “but we were able to pay off every penny he owed.”“And left nothing for yourself when it was done? Very honourable, my lad; it will always be a satisfaction to you.”“It is, sir,” said Reginald, cheering up.“You naturally would be glad to improve your income. How much do you get where you are?”“Eighteen shillings a week.”Mr Medlock whistled softly.“Eighteen shillings; that’s very little, very poor pay,” said he. “I should have thought, with your education, you could have got more than that.”It pleased Reginald to have his education recognised in this delicate way.“We had to be thankful for what we could get,” said he; “there are so many fellows out of work.”“Very true, very true,” said Mr Medlock, shaking his head impressively, “we had no less than 450 replies to our advertisement.”Reginald gave a gasp. What chance had he among 450 competitors?Mr Medlock took a turn or two up and down the room, meditating with himself and keeping his eye all the time on the boy.“Yes,” said he, “450—a lot, isn’t it? Very sad to think of it.”“Very sad,” said Reginald, feeling called upon to say something.“Now,” said Mr Medlock, coming to a halt in his walk in front of the boy, “I suppose you guess I wouldn’t have asked you to call here if I and my fellow-directors hadn’t been pleased with your letter.”Reginald looked pleased and said nothing.“And now I’ve seen you and heard what you’ve got to say, I think you’re not a bad young fellow; but—”Mr Medlock paused, and Reginald’s face changed to one of keen anxiety.“I’m afraid, Mr Cruden, you’re not altogether the sort we want.”The boy’s face fell sadly.“I would do my best,” he said, as bravely as he could, “if you’d try me. I don’t know what the work is yet, but I’m ready to do anything I can.”“Humph!” said Mr Medlock. “What we advertise for is sharp agents, to sell goods on commission among their friends. Now, do you think you could sell £500 worth of wine and cigars and that sort of thing every year among your friends? You’d need to do that to make £50 a year, you know. You understand? Could you go round to your old neighbours and crack up our goods, and book their orders and that sort of thing? I don’t think you could, myself. It strikes me you are too much of a gentleman.”Reginald sat silent for a moment, with the colour coming and going in his cheeks; then he looked up and said, slowly—“I’m afraid I could not do that, sir—I didn’t know you wanted that.”So saying he took up his hat and rose to go.Mr Medlock watched him with a smile, if not of sympathy, at any rate of approval, and when he rose motioned him back to his seat.“Not so fast, my man; I like your spirit, and we may hit it yet.”Reginald resumed his seat with a new interest in his anxious face.“You wouldn’t suit us as a drummer—that is,” said Mr Medlock, hastily correcting himself, “as a tout—an agent; but you might suit us in another way. We’re looking out for a gentlemanly young fellow for secretary—to superintend the concern for the directors, and be the medium of communication between them and the agents. We want an educated young man, and one we can depend upon. As to the work, that’s picked up in a week easily. Now, suppose—suppose when I go back to Liverpool I were to recommend you for a post like that, what would you say?”Reginald was almost too overwhelmed for words; he could only stammer,—“Oh, sir, how kind of you!”“The directors would appoint any one I recommended,” continued Mr Medlock, looking down with satisfaction on the boy’s eagerness; “you’re young, of course, but you seem to be honest, that’s the great thing.”“I think I can promise that,” said Reginald, proudly.“The salary would begin at £150 a year, but we should improve it if you turned out well. And you would, of course, occupy the Company’s house at Liverpool. We should not ask for a premium in your case, but you would have to put £50 into the shares of the Corporation to qualify you, and of course you would get interest on that. Now,” said he, as Reginald began to speak, “don’t be in a hurry. Take your time and think it well over. If you say ‘Yes,’ you may consider the thing settled, and if you say ‘No’—well, we shall be able to find some one else. Ah, here comes lunch—stop and have some with me—bring another plate, waiter.”Reginald felt too bewildered to know what to think or say. He a secretary of a company with £150 a year! It was nearly intoxicating. And for the post spontaneously offered to him in the almost flattering way it had been—this was more gratifying still. In his wildest dreams just now he never pictured himself sitting down as secretary to the Select Agency Corporation to lunch with one of its leading directors!Mr Medlock said no more about “business”, but made himself generally agreeable, asking Reginald about his father and the old days, inquiring as to his mother and brother, and all about his friends and acquaintances in London.Reginald felt he could talk freely to this friend, and he did so. He confided to him all about Mr Durfy’s tyranny, about his brother’s work at theRocket, and even went so far as to drop out a hint in young Gedge’s favour. He told him all about Wilderham and his schoolfellows there, about the books he liked, about the way he spent his evenings, about Dull Street—in fact, he felt as if he had known Mr Medlock for years and could talk to him accordingly.“I declare,” said that gentleman, pulling out his watch, after this pleasant talk had been going on a long time, “it’s five minutes past two. I’m afraid you’ll be late.”Reginald started up.“So I shall, I’d no idea it was so late. I’m afraid I had better go, sir.”“Well, write me a letter to Liverpool to-morrow, or Wednesday at the latest, as we must fill up the place soon. Think it well over. Good-bye, my man. I hope I shall see you again before long. By the way, of course, you won’t talk about all this out of doors.”“Oh, no,” said Reginald, “I haven’t even mentioned it yet at home.”Mr Medlock laughed.“Well, if you come to Liverpool you’ll have to tell them something about it. See, here’s a list of our directors, your mother may recognise some of the names. But beyond your mother and brother don’t talk about it yet, as the Corporation is only just starting.”Reginald heartily concurred in this caution, and promised to act on it, and then after a friendly farewell hastened back to theRocketoffice. The clock pointed nearly a quarter past two when he entered.He was not the sort of fellow to slink in when no one was looking. In fact, he had such a detestation of that sort of thing that he went to the other extreme, and marched ostentatiously past Mr Durfy’s table, as though to challenge his observation.If that was his intention he was not disappointed.“Oh,” said the overseer, with a return of the old sneer, which had been dormant ever since the night Reginald had knocked him down. “Youhavecome, have you? And you know the hour, do you?”“Yes, it’s a quarter past two,” said Reginald.“Is it?” sneered Mr Durfy, in his most offensive way.“Yes, it is,” replied the boy, hotly.What did he care for Durfy now? To-morrow in all probability he would have the satisfaction of walking up to that table and saying, “Mr Durfy, I leave here on Saturday,” meanwhile he was not disposed to stand any of his insolence.But he hardly expected what was coming next.“Very well, then you can just put your hat on your head and go back the way you came, sir.”“What do you mean?” said Reginald, in startled tones.“Mean? what I say!” shouted Durfy. “You’re dismissed, kicked out, and the sooner you go the better.”So this was the dignified leave-taking to which he had secretly looked forward! Kicked out! and kicked out by Durfy! Reginald’s toes tingled at the very thought.“You’ve no right to dismiss me for being a few minutes late,” said he.It was Durfy’s turn now to be dignified. He went on writing, and did his best to affect oblivion of his enemy’s presence.Reginald, too indignant to know the folly of such an outburst, broke out,—“I shall not take my dismissal from you. I shall stay here as long as I choose, and when I go I’ll go of my own accord, you cad, you—”Mr Durfy still went on writing with a cheerful smile on his countenance.“Do you hear?” said Reginald, almost shouting the words. “I’m not going to please you. I shall go to please myself. I giveyounotice, and thank Heaven I’ve done with you.”Durfy looked up with a laugh.“Go and make that noise outside,” he said. “We can do without you here. Gedge, my man, put those cases beside you back into the rack, and go and tell the porter he’s wanted.”The mention of Gedge’s name cowed Reginald in an instant, and in the sudden revulsion of feeling which ensued he was glad enough to escape from the room before fairly breaking down under a crushing sense of injury, mortification, and helplessness. Gedge was at the door as he went out.“Oh, Cruden,” he whispered, “what will become of me now? Wait for me outside at seven o’clock; please do.”That afternoon Reginald paced the streets more like a hunted beast than a human being. All the bad side of his nature—his pride, his conceit, his selfishness—was stirred within him under a bitter sense of shame and indignity. He forgot how much his own intractable temper and stupid self-importance had contributed to his fall, and could think of nothing but Durfy’s triumph and the evil fate which at the very moment, when he was able to snap his fingers in the tyrant’s face, had driven him forth in disgrace with the tyrant’s fingers snapped in his face. He had not spirit or resolution enough to wait to see Gedge or any one that evening, but slunk away, hating the sight of everybody, and wishing only he could lose himself and forget that such a wretch as Reginald Cruden existed.Ah! Reginald. It’s a long race to escape from oneself. Men have tried it before now with better reason than you, and failed. Wait till you have something worse to run from, my honest, foolish friend. Face round like a man, and stand up to your pursuer. You have hit out straight from the shoulder before to-day. Do it again now. One smart round will finish the business, for this false Reginald is a poor creature after all, and you can knock him out of time and over the ropes with one hand if you like. Try it, and save your running powers for an uglier foeman some other day!Reginald did fight it out with himself as he walked mile after mile that afternoon through the London streets, and by the time he reached home in the evening he was himself again.He met his mother’s tears and Horace’s dismal looks with a smile of triumph.“So you’ve heard all about it, have you?” said he.“Oh, Reginald,” said his mother, in deep distress, “how grieved I am for you!”“You needn’t be, mother,” said Reginald, “for I’ve got another situation far better and worth three times as much.”And then he told them, as far as he felt justified in doing so, of the advertisement and what it had led to, finishing up with a glowing description of Mr Medlock, whom he only regretted he had not had the courage to ask up to tea that very evening.But there was a cloud on the bright horizon which his mother and Horace were quicker to observe than he.“But, Reg,” said the latter, “surely it means you’d have to go to Liverpool?”“Yes; I’m afraid it does. That’s the one drawback.”“But surely you won’t accept it, then?” said the younger brother.Reginald looked up. Horace’s tone, if not imperious, had not been sympathetic, and it jarred on him in the fulness of his projects to encounter an obstacle.“Why not?” he replied. “It’s all very well for you, in your snug berth, but I must get a living, mustn’t I?”“I should have thought something might turn up in London,” persisted Horace.“Things don’t turn up as we want them,” said Reginald, tartly. “Look here, Horace, you surely don’t suppose I prefer to go to Liverpool to staying here?”“Of course not,” said Horace, beginning to whistle softly to himself. It was a bad omen, and Mrs Cruden knew it.“Come,” said she, cheerily, “we must make the best of it. These names, Reg, in the list of directors Mr Medlock gave you, seem all very respectable.”“Do you know any of them?” asked Reginald. “Mr Medlock thought you might.”“I know one or two by name,” replied she. “There’s the Bishop of S—, I see, and Major Wakeman, who I suppose is the officer who has been doing so well in India. There’s a Member of Parliament, too, I see. It seems a good set of directors.”“Of course they aren’t likely all to turn up at board meetings,” said Reginald, with an explanatory air.“I don’t see myself what business a bishop has with a Select Agency Corporation,” said Horace, determined not to see matters in a favourable light.“My dear fellow,” said Reginald, trying hard to keep his temper, “I can’t help whether you see it or not. By the way, mother, about the £50 to invest. I think Mr Richmond—”Mrs Cruden started.“This exciting news,” said she, “drove it out of my head for the moment. Boys, I am very sorry to say I had a note to-day stating that Mr Richmond was taken ill while in France, and is dead. He was one of our few old friends, and it is a very sad blow.”She was right. The Crudens never stood in greater need of a wise friend than they did now.
The two days which followed the despatch of the letter to “Omega” were long and anxious ones for Reginald Cruden. It would have been a great relief to him had he felt free to talk the matter over with Horace; but somehow that word “confidential” in the advertisement deterred him. For all that, he made a point of leaving the paper containing it in his brother’s way, if by any chance the invitation to an additional £50 a year might meet his eye. Had it done so, it is doubtful whether Reginald would have been pleased, for he knew that if it came to selecting one of the two, Horace would probably pass for quite as respectable and considerably more intelligent a young man than himself. Still, he had no right to stand in his brother’s way if fate ordained that he too should be attracted by the advertisement. He therefore left the paper lying conspicuously about with the advertisement sheet turned toward the beholder.
Horace, however, had too much of theRocketin his business hours to crave for a further perusal of it during his leisure. He kicked it unceremoniously out of his way the first time he encountered it; and when Reginald saw it next it was in a mangled condition under the stairs in the suspicious company of the servant-girl’s cinder-shovel.
On the second morning, when he arrived at his work, a letter lay on his case with the Liverpool postmark, addressed R. Cruden, Esquire,RocketOffice, London. In his excitement and haste to learn its contents it never occurred to him to notice the unexpected compliment conveyed in the word “Esquire”; and he might have remained for ever in blissful ignorance of the fact, had not his left-hand neighbour, the satirical Mr Barber, considered the occasion a good one for a few flashes of wit.
“’Ullo, Esquire, ’ow are you, Esquire? There is somebody knows you, then. Liverpool, too! That’s where all the chaps who rob the till go to. R. Cruden, Esquire—my eye! What’s the use of putting any more than ‘London’ on the envelope—such a well-known character as you? Stuck-up idiot!”
To this address Reginald attended sufficiently to discover that it was not worth listening to; after which he did not even hear the concluding passages of his neighbour’s declamation, being absorbed in far more interesting inquiries. He tore the envelope open and hurriedly read—
“Sir,—Your favour is to hand, and in reply we beg to say we shall be glad to arrange an interview. One of our directors will be in town on Monday next, and can see you between one and two o’clock at Weaver’s Hotel. Be good enough to treat this and all further communications as strictly confidential.—We are, Sir, yours faithfully,—
“The Select Agency Corporation.
“P.S.—Ask at Weaver’s Hotel for Mr Medlock.
“Liverpool.”
The welcome contents of this short note fairly staggered him. If the tone of the advertisement had been encouraging, that of this letter was positively convincing. It was concise, business-like, grammatical and courteous. Since his trouble Reginald had never been addressed by any one in the terms of respect conveyed in this communication. Furthermore, the appointment being between one and two—the dinner-hour—he would be able to keep it without difficulty or observation, particularly as Weaver’s Hotel was not a stone’s throw from theRocketoffice. Then again, the fact of his letter being from a “corporation” gratified and encouraged him. A Select Agency Corporation was not the sort of company to do things meanly or inconsiderately. They were doubtless a select body of men themselves, and they required the services of select servants; and it was perfectly reasonable that in an affair like this, whichmightlead to nothing, strict mutual confidence should be observed. Supposing in the end he should see reason to decline to connect himself with the Corporation (Reginald liked to think this possible, though he felt sure it was not probable), why, if he had said much about it previously, itmightbe to the prejudice of the Corporation! Finally, he thought the name “Medlock” agreeable, and was generally highly gratified with the letter, and wished devoutly Monday would come round quickly.
The one drawback to his satisfaction was that he was still as far as ever from knowing in what direction his respectable and intelligent services were likely to be required. Monday came at last. When he went up on the Saturday to receive his wages he had fully expected to learn Mr Durfy’s intentions with regard to him, and was duly surprised when that gentleman actually handed him his money without a word, and with the faintest suspicion of a smile.
“He’s got a nailer on you, old man, and no mistake,” said Gedge, dolefully. “I’d advise you to keep your eye open for a new berth, if you get the chance; and, I say, if you can only hear of one for two!”
This last appeal went to Reginald’s heart, and he inwardly resolved, if Mr Medlock turned out to be as amiable a man as he took him for, to put in a word on Gedge’s behalf as well as his own at the coming interview.
The dinner-bell that Monday tolled solemnly in Reginald’s ears as he put on a clean collar and brushed his hair previously to embarking on his journey to Weaver’s Hotel. What change might not have taken place in his lot before that same bell summoned him once more to work? He left theRocketa needy youth of £47 10 shillings a year. Was he to return to it passing rich of £97 10 shillings?
Weaver’s Hotel was a respectable quiet resort for country visitors in London, and Reginald, as he stood in its homely entrance hall, felt secretly glad that the Corporation selected a place like this for its London headquarters rather than one of the more showy but less respectable hotels or restaurants with which the neighbourhood abounded.
Mr Medlock was in his room, the waiter said, and Mr Cruden was to step up. He did step up, and was ushered into a little sitting-room, where a middle-aged gentleman stood before the fire-place reading the paper and softly humming to himself as he did so.
“Mr Cruden, sir,” said the waiter.
“Ah! Mr Cruden, good morning. Take a seat. John, I shall be ready for lunch in about ten-minutes.”
Reginald, with the agitating conviction that his fate would be sealed one way or another in ten-minutes, obeyed, and darted a nervous glance at his new acquaintance.
He rather liked the looks of him. He looked a comfortable, well-to-do gentleman, with rather a handsome face, and a manner by no means disheartening. Mr Medlock in turn indulged in a careful survey of the boy as he sat shyly before him trying to look self-possessed, but not man of the world enough to conceal his anxiety or excitement.
“Let me see,” said Mr Medlock, putting his hands in his pocket and leaning against the mantel-piece, “you replied to the advertisement, didn’t you?”
“Yes, sir,” said Reginald.
“And what made you think you would suit us?”
“Well, sir,” stammered Reginald, “you wanted respectable intelligent young men—and—and I thought I—that is, I hoped I might answer that description.”
Mr Medlock took one hand out of his pocket and stroked his chin.
“Have you been in the printing trade long?”
“Only a few weeks, sir.”
“What were you doing before that?”
Reginald flushed.
“I was at school, sir—at Wilderham.”
“Wilderham? Why, that’s a school for gentlemen’s sons.”
“My father was a gentleman, sir,” said the boy, proudly.
“He’s dead then?” said Mr Medlock. “That is sad. But did he leave nothing behind him?”
“He died suddenly, sir,” said Reginald, speaking with an effort, “and left scarcely anything.”
“Did he die in debt? You must excuse these questions, Mr Cruden,” added the gentleman, with an amiable smile; “it is necessary to ask them or I would spare you the trouble.”
“He did die in debt,” said Reginald, “but we were able to pay off every penny he owed.”
“And left nothing for yourself when it was done? Very honourable, my lad; it will always be a satisfaction to you.”
“It is, sir,” said Reginald, cheering up.
“You naturally would be glad to improve your income. How much do you get where you are?”
“Eighteen shillings a week.”
Mr Medlock whistled softly.
“Eighteen shillings; that’s very little, very poor pay,” said he. “I should have thought, with your education, you could have got more than that.”
It pleased Reginald to have his education recognised in this delicate way.
“We had to be thankful for what we could get,” said he; “there are so many fellows out of work.”
“Very true, very true,” said Mr Medlock, shaking his head impressively, “we had no less than 450 replies to our advertisement.”
Reginald gave a gasp. What chance had he among 450 competitors?
Mr Medlock took a turn or two up and down the room, meditating with himself and keeping his eye all the time on the boy.
“Yes,” said he, “450—a lot, isn’t it? Very sad to think of it.”
“Very sad,” said Reginald, feeling called upon to say something.
“Now,” said Mr Medlock, coming to a halt in his walk in front of the boy, “I suppose you guess I wouldn’t have asked you to call here if I and my fellow-directors hadn’t been pleased with your letter.”
Reginald looked pleased and said nothing.
“And now I’ve seen you and heard what you’ve got to say, I think you’re not a bad young fellow; but—”
Mr Medlock paused, and Reginald’s face changed to one of keen anxiety.
“I’m afraid, Mr Cruden, you’re not altogether the sort we want.”
The boy’s face fell sadly.
“I would do my best,” he said, as bravely as he could, “if you’d try me. I don’t know what the work is yet, but I’m ready to do anything I can.”
“Humph!” said Mr Medlock. “What we advertise for is sharp agents, to sell goods on commission among their friends. Now, do you think you could sell £500 worth of wine and cigars and that sort of thing every year among your friends? You’d need to do that to make £50 a year, you know. You understand? Could you go round to your old neighbours and crack up our goods, and book their orders and that sort of thing? I don’t think you could, myself. It strikes me you are too much of a gentleman.”
Reginald sat silent for a moment, with the colour coming and going in his cheeks; then he looked up and said, slowly—
“I’m afraid I could not do that, sir—I didn’t know you wanted that.”
So saying he took up his hat and rose to go.
Mr Medlock watched him with a smile, if not of sympathy, at any rate of approval, and when he rose motioned him back to his seat.
“Not so fast, my man; I like your spirit, and we may hit it yet.”
Reginald resumed his seat with a new interest in his anxious face.
“You wouldn’t suit us as a drummer—that is,” said Mr Medlock, hastily correcting himself, “as a tout—an agent; but you might suit us in another way. We’re looking out for a gentlemanly young fellow for secretary—to superintend the concern for the directors, and be the medium of communication between them and the agents. We want an educated young man, and one we can depend upon. As to the work, that’s picked up in a week easily. Now, suppose—suppose when I go back to Liverpool I were to recommend you for a post like that, what would you say?”
Reginald was almost too overwhelmed for words; he could only stammer,—
“Oh, sir, how kind of you!”
“The directors would appoint any one I recommended,” continued Mr Medlock, looking down with satisfaction on the boy’s eagerness; “you’re young, of course, but you seem to be honest, that’s the great thing.”
“I think I can promise that,” said Reginald, proudly.
“The salary would begin at £150 a year, but we should improve it if you turned out well. And you would, of course, occupy the Company’s house at Liverpool. We should not ask for a premium in your case, but you would have to put £50 into the shares of the Corporation to qualify you, and of course you would get interest on that. Now,” said he, as Reginald began to speak, “don’t be in a hurry. Take your time and think it well over. If you say ‘Yes,’ you may consider the thing settled, and if you say ‘No’—well, we shall be able to find some one else. Ah, here comes lunch—stop and have some with me—bring another plate, waiter.”
Reginald felt too bewildered to know what to think or say. He a secretary of a company with £150 a year! It was nearly intoxicating. And for the post spontaneously offered to him in the almost flattering way it had been—this was more gratifying still. In his wildest dreams just now he never pictured himself sitting down as secretary to the Select Agency Corporation to lunch with one of its leading directors!
Mr Medlock said no more about “business”, but made himself generally agreeable, asking Reginald about his father and the old days, inquiring as to his mother and brother, and all about his friends and acquaintances in London.
Reginald felt he could talk freely to this friend, and he did so. He confided to him all about Mr Durfy’s tyranny, about his brother’s work at theRocket, and even went so far as to drop out a hint in young Gedge’s favour. He told him all about Wilderham and his schoolfellows there, about the books he liked, about the way he spent his evenings, about Dull Street—in fact, he felt as if he had known Mr Medlock for years and could talk to him accordingly.
“I declare,” said that gentleman, pulling out his watch, after this pleasant talk had been going on a long time, “it’s five minutes past two. I’m afraid you’ll be late.”
Reginald started up.
“So I shall, I’d no idea it was so late. I’m afraid I had better go, sir.”
“Well, write me a letter to Liverpool to-morrow, or Wednesday at the latest, as we must fill up the place soon. Think it well over. Good-bye, my man. I hope I shall see you again before long. By the way, of course, you won’t talk about all this out of doors.”
“Oh, no,” said Reginald, “I haven’t even mentioned it yet at home.”
Mr Medlock laughed.
“Well, if you come to Liverpool you’ll have to tell them something about it. See, here’s a list of our directors, your mother may recognise some of the names. But beyond your mother and brother don’t talk about it yet, as the Corporation is only just starting.”
Reginald heartily concurred in this caution, and promised to act on it, and then after a friendly farewell hastened back to theRocketoffice. The clock pointed nearly a quarter past two when he entered.
He was not the sort of fellow to slink in when no one was looking. In fact, he had such a detestation of that sort of thing that he went to the other extreme, and marched ostentatiously past Mr Durfy’s table, as though to challenge his observation.
If that was his intention he was not disappointed.
“Oh,” said the overseer, with a return of the old sneer, which had been dormant ever since the night Reginald had knocked him down. “Youhavecome, have you? And you know the hour, do you?”
“Yes, it’s a quarter past two,” said Reginald.
“Is it?” sneered Mr Durfy, in his most offensive way.
“Yes, it is,” replied the boy, hotly.
What did he care for Durfy now? To-morrow in all probability he would have the satisfaction of walking up to that table and saying, “Mr Durfy, I leave here on Saturday,” meanwhile he was not disposed to stand any of his insolence.
But he hardly expected what was coming next.
“Very well, then you can just put your hat on your head and go back the way you came, sir.”
“What do you mean?” said Reginald, in startled tones.
“Mean? what I say!” shouted Durfy. “You’re dismissed, kicked out, and the sooner you go the better.”
So this was the dignified leave-taking to which he had secretly looked forward! Kicked out! and kicked out by Durfy! Reginald’s toes tingled at the very thought.
“You’ve no right to dismiss me for being a few minutes late,” said he.
It was Durfy’s turn now to be dignified. He went on writing, and did his best to affect oblivion of his enemy’s presence.
Reginald, too indignant to know the folly of such an outburst, broke out,—
“I shall not take my dismissal from you. I shall stay here as long as I choose, and when I go I’ll go of my own accord, you cad, you—”
Mr Durfy still went on writing with a cheerful smile on his countenance.
“Do you hear?” said Reginald, almost shouting the words. “I’m not going to please you. I shall go to please myself. I giveyounotice, and thank Heaven I’ve done with you.”
Durfy looked up with a laugh.
“Go and make that noise outside,” he said. “We can do without you here. Gedge, my man, put those cases beside you back into the rack, and go and tell the porter he’s wanted.”
The mention of Gedge’s name cowed Reginald in an instant, and in the sudden revulsion of feeling which ensued he was glad enough to escape from the room before fairly breaking down under a crushing sense of injury, mortification, and helplessness. Gedge was at the door as he went out.
“Oh, Cruden,” he whispered, “what will become of me now? Wait for me outside at seven o’clock; please do.”
That afternoon Reginald paced the streets more like a hunted beast than a human being. All the bad side of his nature—his pride, his conceit, his selfishness—was stirred within him under a bitter sense of shame and indignity. He forgot how much his own intractable temper and stupid self-importance had contributed to his fall, and could think of nothing but Durfy’s triumph and the evil fate which at the very moment, when he was able to snap his fingers in the tyrant’s face, had driven him forth in disgrace with the tyrant’s fingers snapped in his face. He had not spirit or resolution enough to wait to see Gedge or any one that evening, but slunk away, hating the sight of everybody, and wishing only he could lose himself and forget that such a wretch as Reginald Cruden existed.
Ah! Reginald. It’s a long race to escape from oneself. Men have tried it before now with better reason than you, and failed. Wait till you have something worse to run from, my honest, foolish friend. Face round like a man, and stand up to your pursuer. You have hit out straight from the shoulder before to-day. Do it again now. One smart round will finish the business, for this false Reginald is a poor creature after all, and you can knock him out of time and over the ropes with one hand if you like. Try it, and save your running powers for an uglier foeman some other day!
Reginald did fight it out with himself as he walked mile after mile that afternoon through the London streets, and by the time he reached home in the evening he was himself again.
He met his mother’s tears and Horace’s dismal looks with a smile of triumph.
“So you’ve heard all about it, have you?” said he.
“Oh, Reginald,” said his mother, in deep distress, “how grieved I am for you!”
“You needn’t be, mother,” said Reginald, “for I’ve got another situation far better and worth three times as much.”
And then he told them, as far as he felt justified in doing so, of the advertisement and what it had led to, finishing up with a glowing description of Mr Medlock, whom he only regretted he had not had the courage to ask up to tea that very evening.
But there was a cloud on the bright horizon which his mother and Horace were quicker to observe than he.
“But, Reg,” said the latter, “surely it means you’d have to go to Liverpool?”
“Yes; I’m afraid it does. That’s the one drawback.”
“But surely you won’t accept it, then?” said the younger brother.
Reginald looked up. Horace’s tone, if not imperious, had not been sympathetic, and it jarred on him in the fulness of his projects to encounter an obstacle.
“Why not?” he replied. “It’s all very well for you, in your snug berth, but I must get a living, mustn’t I?”
“I should have thought something might turn up in London,” persisted Horace.
“Things don’t turn up as we want them,” said Reginald, tartly. “Look here, Horace, you surely don’t suppose I prefer to go to Liverpool to staying here?”
“Of course not,” said Horace, beginning to whistle softly to himself. It was a bad omen, and Mrs Cruden knew it.
“Come,” said she, cheerily, “we must make the best of it. These names, Reg, in the list of directors Mr Medlock gave you, seem all very respectable.”
“Do you know any of them?” asked Reginald. “Mr Medlock thought you might.”
“I know one or two by name,” replied she. “There’s the Bishop of S—, I see, and Major Wakeman, who I suppose is the officer who has been doing so well in India. There’s a Member of Parliament, too, I see. It seems a good set of directors.”
“Of course they aren’t likely all to turn up at board meetings,” said Reginald, with an explanatory air.
“I don’t see myself what business a bishop has with a Select Agency Corporation,” said Horace, determined not to see matters in a favourable light.
“My dear fellow,” said Reginald, trying hard to keep his temper, “I can’t help whether you see it or not. By the way, mother, about the £50 to invest. I think Mr Richmond—”
Mrs Cruden started.
“This exciting news,” said she, “drove it out of my head for the moment. Boys, I am very sorry to say I had a note to-day stating that Mr Richmond was taken ill while in France, and is dead. He was one of our few old friends, and it is a very sad blow.”
She was right. The Crudens never stood in greater need of a wise friend than they did now.
Chapter Eleven.Reginald takes his Fate into his own Hands.The next day Reginald wrote and accepted the invitation of the directors of the Select Agency Corporation. He flattered himself he was acting deliberately, and after fully weighing the pros and cons of the question. True, he still knew very little about his new duties, and had yet to make the acquaintance of the Bishop of S— and the other directors. But, on the other hand, he had seen Mr Medlock, and heard what he had to say, and was quite satisfied in his own mind that everything was all right. And, greatest argument of all, he had no other place to go to, and £150 a year was a salary not to be thrown away when put into one’s hands.Still, he felt a trifle uncomfortable about the necessity of going to Liverpool and breaking up the old home. Of course, he could not help himself, and Horace had no right to insinuate otherwise. All the same, it was a pity, and if there had not been the compensating certainty of being able to send up regular contributions to the family purse, which would help his mother to not a few comforts hitherto denied, he would have been more troubled still about it.“What will you do about the £50?” said Horace next day, forcing himself to appear interested in what he inwardly disapproved.“Oh,” said Reginald, “I’d intended to ask Richmond to lend it me. It’s not exactly a loan either; it would be the same as his investing in the company in my name. The money would be safe, and he’d get his interest into the bargain. But of course I can’t go to him now.”“No; and I don’t know whom else you could ask,” said Horace.“They might let me put in a pound a week out of my salary,” said Reginald. “That would still leave me two pounds a week, and of that I could send home at least twenty-five shillings.”Horace mused.“It seems to me rather queer to expect you to put the money in,” said he.“It may be queer, but it’s their rule, Mr Medlock says.”“And whatever does the Corporation do? It’s precious hazy to my mind.”“I can’t tell you anything about it now,” said Reginald; “the concern is only just started, and I have promised to treat all Mr Medlock told me as confidential. But I’m quite satisfied in my mind, and you may be too, Horace.”Horace did not feel encouraged to pursue the discussion after this, and went off alone to work in low spirits, and feeling unusually dismal.“By the way,” said Reginald, as he started, “bring young Gedge home with you. I meant to see him last night, but forgot.”Reginald spent the day uneasily for himself and his mother in trying to feel absolutely satisfied with the decision he had come to, and in speculating on his future work. Towards afternoon, weary of being all day in the house, he went out for a stroll. It was a beautiful day, and the prospect of a walk in the park by daylight was a tempting one.As he was passing down Piccadilly, he became aware of some one approaching him whom he knew, and whom, in another moment, he recognised as Blandford.There was some excuse certainly for not taking in his old schoolfellow’s identity all at once, for the boy he had known at Wilderham only a few months ago had suddenly blossomed forth into a man, and had exchanged the airy bearing of a school-boy for the half-languid swagger of a man about town.“Hullo, Bland, old man!” exclaimed Reginald, lighting up jubilantly at the sight of an old familiar face, “how are you? Who would have thought of seeing you?”Blandford was surprised too, and for a moment critically surveyed the boy in front of him before he replied.“Ah, Cruden, that you? I shouldn’t have known you.”Reginald’s face fell. He became suddenly aware, and for the first time in his life, that his clothes were shabby, and that his boots were in holes.“I shouldn’t have known you,” he replied; “you look so much older than when I saw you last.”“So I am; but, I say,” added Bland, reddening as an acquaintance passed and nodded to him, “I’m rather in a hurry, Cruden, just now. If you’re not engaged this evening, come and dine with me at seven at the Shades, and we can have a talk. Good-bye.”And he went on hurriedly, leaving Reginald with an uncomfortable suspicion that if he—Reginald—had been more smartly dressed, and had worn gloves and a tall hat, the interview would have been more cordial and less hasty.However, the longing he felt for the old happy days that were past decided him to appear at the Shades at the hour appointed, although it meant absence from home on one of his few remaining evenings, and, still more, a further desertion of young Gedge.He repented of his resolution almost as soon as he had made it. What was to be gained by assuming a false position for an evening, and trying to delude himself into the notion that he was the equal of his old comrade? Did not his clothes, his empty pockets, the smart of Durfy’s tongue, and even the letter now on its way to Mr Medlock, all disprove it? And yet, three months ago, he was a better man all round than Blandford, who had been glad to claim his friendship and accept his father’s hospitality. Reginald rebelled against the idea that they two could still be anything to one another than the friends they had once been; but all the while the old school saw came back into his mind—that imposition sentence he had in his day written out hundreds of times without once thinking of its meaning:Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.He reached the Shades a few minutes before seven, and waited outside till his friend arrived. He had not to wait long, for Blandford and a couple of companions drove up punctually in a hansom—all of them, to Reginald’s horror, being arrayed in full evening dress.“Hullo, Cruden, you’ve turned up then,” said Blandford. “What, not in regimentals? You usen’t to be backward in that way. Never mind; they say dress after seven o’clock here, but they’re not strict. We can smuggle you in.”Oh, how Reginald wished he was safe back in Dull Street!“By the way,” continued Blandford, “these are two friends of mine, Cruden—Mr Shanklin and Mr Pillans. Cruden’s an old Wilderham fellow, you know,” he added, in an explanatory aside.The gentleman introduced as Mr Shanklin stared curiously at Reginald for a few seconds, and then shook hands. Had the boy known as much of that gentleman as the reader does, he would probably have displayed considerably more interest in his new acquaintance than he did. As it was, he would have been glad of an excuse to avoid shaking hands with either him or his empty-headed companion, Mr Pillans. He went through the ceremony as stiffly as possible, and then followed the party within.“Now, then,” said Blandford, as they sat down at one of the tables, “what do you say? It’ll save trouble to take the table d’hôte, eh? are you game, you fellows? Table d’hôte for four, waiter. What shall we have to drink? I say hock to start with.”“I wont take any wine,” said Reginald, with an effort.“Why not? You’re not a teetotaler, are you?”“I won’t take any wine,” repeated Reginald decisively; and, to his satisfaction, he was allowed to do as he pleased.The dinner passed as such entertainments usually do, diminishing in interest as it went on. In his happiest days, Reginald always hated what the boys used to call “feeds,” and he found that three months’ altered circumstances had by no means reconciled him to the infliction. He shirked the last two or three courses, and grew heartily tired of the sight of a plate.“You wondered how I came to be in town?” said Blandford. “The fact is, my uncle went off the hooks a few weeks ago, and as I’m his heir, you know, I came up, and haven’t gone back yet. I don’t think I shall either.”“No; what’s the use, with the pot of money you’ve come in for?” said Mr Shanklin. “You’re far more comfortable up in town.”“Yes, andyou’rea nice boy to show a fellow about town,” said Blandford, laughing, “Wilderham’s all very well, you know, Cruden,” continued he, “but it’s a grind being cooped up there when you’ve got your chance of a fling.”“Well, you’ve not wasted your chances, my boy,” said Mr Pillans, who, besides being empty-headed, was unhealthy in complexion, and red about the eyes.Blandford appeared rather flattered than otherwise by this observation, and told Mr Pillans to shut up and not tell tales out of school.“I suppose Wilderham hasn’t changed much since last term?” asked Reginald wistfully.“Oh no; plenty of fellows left and new ones come—rather a better lot, take them all round, than we had last term.”“Has the football club been doing well again?” asked the old boy.“Oh, middling. By the way, the fellows growled rather when you only sent them half-a-sov. instead of a sov.”Reginald coloured up. Little his comrade knew what that half-sovereign had cost him!He relapsed into silence, and had to derive what compensation he could from the fast talk in which the other three engaged, apparently heedless of his presence.In due time the meal ended, and Blandford called for the bills.Until that moment Reginald had never imagined for a moment but that he had been dining as his old schoolfellow’s guest. He had understood Blandford’s request of his company as an invitation, and as an invitation he had accepted it, and as an invitation he had repented of it. What, then, was his embarrassment to find a bill for six shillings and sixpence laid down before him as his share of the entertainment!For a moment a flush of relief passed across his face. He was glad not to find himself under obligations to Blandford after all. But in another moment relief was changed to horror as he remembered that three shillings was all the money he had about him. Oh, the humiliation, the anguish of this discovery! He would have had anything happen rather than this.He sat staring at the bill like a being petrified.“Come along,” said Blandford, “let’s go to the smoking-room. I suppose you fellows will have coffee there. Coffee for four, waiter. Are you ready?”But Reginald did not move, nor did the waiter.“What’s the row?” said Blandford to the latter.The waiter pointed to Reginald’s bill.“Oh, he’s waiting for your bill, Cruden. Look sharp, old man!”The colour came and went in Reginald’s face, as though he had been charged with some hideous crime. And it seemed like a deliberate mockery of his trouble that his three companions and the waiter stood silent at the table, eyeing him, and waiting for his answer.“I’m sorry,” he said at length, bringing up the words with a tremendous effort, “I find I’ve not money enough to pay it. I made a mistake in coming here.”All four listeners stood with faces of mingled amazement and amusement at the boy’s agitation and the tragic manner in which he accounted for it. Any one else would have carried it off with a jest; but to Reginald it was like passing through the fire.“Would you mind—may I trouble you—that is, will you lend me three-and-sixpence, Blandford?” he said at last.Blandford burst out laughing.“I thought at least you’d swallowed a silver spoon!” said he. “Here, waiter, I’ll settle that bill. How much is it?”“No,” said Reginald, laying down his three shillings; “if you can lend me three-and-sixpence, that’s all I want.”“Bosh!” said Blandford, pitching half a sovereign to the waiter; “take it out of that, and this coffee too, and come along into the smoking-room, you fellows.”Reginald would fain have escaped; but the horrid dread of being suspected of caring more about his dinner than his company deterred him, and he followed dejectedly to the luxurious smoking-room of the Shades.He positively refused to touch the coffee or the cigar, even though Blandford took care to remind him they had been paid for. Nor, except when spoken to, could he bring himself to open his lips or take part in the general talk.Blandford, however, who, ever since the incident of the bill, seemed to consider himself entitled to play a patronising part towards his schoolfellow, continued to keep him from lapsing into obscurity.“Where’s your brother living?” he asked presently.“He’s in town, too,” said Reginald. “My mother and he and I live together.”“Where? I’d like to call on your mother.”“We live in Dull Street,” said Reginald, beginning in sheer desperation to pluck up heart and hang out no more false colours.“Dull Street? That’s rather a shady locality, isn’t it?” said Mr Pillans.Reginald rounded on him. Blandford might have a right to catechise him; but what business was it of this numbskull’s where he lived?“You’re not obliged to go there,” he said, with a curl of his lip, “unless you like.”Mr Shanklin smiled at this sally, a demonstration which considerably incensed the not too amiable Mr Pillans.“I’ll take precious care I don’t,” said the latter.Reginald said “Thanks!” drily, and in a way so cutting that Mr Shanklin and Blandford both laughed this time.“Look here,” said the unwholesome Pillans, looking very warm, “what do you say that for? Do you want to cheek me?”“Don’t be a fool, Pillans. It doesn’t matter to you where he lives,” said Blandford.“Thank goodness it don’t—or whether he pays his rent either.”“It’s a pity you had to leave Garden Vale,” said Blandford, apparently anxious to turn the conversation into a more pacific channel; “such a jolly place it was. What do you do with yourself all day long in town?”Reginald smiled.“I work for my living,” said he, keeping his eye steadily fixed on Mr Pillans, as if waiting to catch the first sign of an insult on his part.“That’s what we all do, more or less,” said Mr Shanklin. “Blandford here works like a nigger to spend his money, don’t you, old man?”“I do so,” said Blandford, “with your valuable assistance.”“And with somebody else’s assistance too,” said Mr Pillans, with a shrug in the direction of Reginald.Reginald understood the taunt, and rose to his feet.“You’re not going?” said Blandford.“I am. I don’t forget I owe you for my dinner, Blandford; and I shan’t forget that I owe you also for introducing me to a blackguard. Good-night.”And without allowing his hearers time to recover from the astonishment into which these words had thrown them, he marched out of the Shades with his head in the air.It was a minute before any of the three disconcerted companions could recover the gift of speech. At last Mr Shanklin burst out into a laugh.“Capital, that was,” he said; “there’s something in the fellow. And,” he added internally, and not in the hearing of either of his companions, “if he’s the same fellow Medlock has hooked, our fortune’s made.”“All very well,” said Pillans; “but he called me a blackguard.”This simple discovery caused still greater merriment at the expense of the outraged owner of the appellation.“I’ve a good mind to go after him, and pull his nose,” growled he.“Nothing would please him better,” said Blandford. “But you’d better leave your own nose behind, my boy, before you start, or there won’t be much of it left. I know Cruden of old.”“You won’t see much more of him now,” sneered Pillans, “now he owes you for his dinner.”“It strikes me, Bland was never safer of a six-and-six in his life than he is of the one he lent to-night,” said Mr Shanklin. “Unless I’m mistaken, the fellow would walk across England on his bare feet to pay it back.”Mr Shanklin, it was evident, could appreciate honesty in any one else. He was highly delighted with what he had seen of the new secretary. If anything could float the Select Agency Corporation, the lad’s unsuspicious honesty would do it. In fact, things were looking up all round for the precious confederates. With Reginald to supply them with honesty, with easy-going spendthrifts, like Blandford and Pillans, to supply them with money, and with a cad like Durfy to do their dirty work for them, they were in as comfortable and hopeful a way as the promoters of such an enterprise could reasonably hope to be.The trio at the Shades soon forgot Reginald in the delights of one another’s sweet society. They played billiards, at which Mr Shanklin won. They also played cards, at which, by a singular coincidence, Mr Shanklin won too. They then went to call on a friend who knew the “straight tip” for the Saint Leger, and under his advice they laid out a good deal of money, which (such are the freaks of fortune) also found its way somehow into Mr Shanklin’s pocket-book. Finally, they supped together, and then went home to bed, each one under the delusion that he had spent a very pleasant evening.Reginald was far from sharing the same opinion as he paced home that evening. How glad he should be to be out of this hateful London, where everything went wrong, and reminded him that he was a pauper, dependent on others for his living, for his clothes, for his—faugh! for his dinner! Happily he had not to endure it much longer. At Liverpool, he would be independent. He would hold a position not degrading to a gentleman; he would associate with men of intellect and breeding; he would even have the joy of helping his mother to many a little luxury which, as long as he remained in London, he could never have given her. He quickened his pace, and reached home. Gedge had been there, spiritless and forlorn, and had left as soon as he could excuse himself.“Out of sight, out of mind,” he had said, with a forced laugh, to Horace when the latter expressed his regret at Reginald’s absence.Mrs Cruden and Horace both tried to look cheerful; but the cloud on the horizon was too large now to be covered with a hand.When Reginald announced that he had written and accepted the invitation to Liverpool, there was no jubilation, no eager congratulation.“What shall we do without you?” said Mrs Cruden.“It is horrid having to go, mother,” said the boy; “but we must make the best of it. If you look so unhappy, I shall be sorry I ever thought of it.”His mother tried to smile, and said,—“Yes, we must try and make the best of it, dear boys; and if we cannot seem as glad as we should like to be, it’s not to be wondered at at first, is it?”“I hope you’ll get holidays enough now and then to run up,” said Horace.“Oh yes; I don’t fancy there’ll be much difficulty about that,” replied Reg. “In fact, it’s possible I may have to come up now and then on business.”There was a silence for a few seconds, and then he added rather nervously,—“By the way, mother, about the £50. I had intended to ask Mr Richmond to advance it, although I should have hated to do so. But now, I was wondering—do you think there would be any objection to taking it out of our money, and letting it be invested in my name in the Corporation? It really wouldn’t make any difference, for you’d get exactly the same interest for it as you got through Mr Richmond; and, of course, the principal would belong to you too.”“I see no objection,” said Mrs Cruden. “It’s our common stock, and if we can use it for the common good, so much the better.”“Thanks,” said Reginald. “If you wouldn’t mind sending a line to Mr Richmond’s clerk to-morrow, he could let me have the cheque to take down or Monday with me.”The three days that followed were dismal ones for the three Crudens. There are few miseries like that of an impending separation. We wish the fatal moment to arrive and end our suspense. We know of a thousand things we want to say, but the time slips by wasted, and hangs drearily on our hands. We have not the spirit to look forward, or the heart to look back. We long to have it all over, and yet every stroke of the clock falls like a cruel knell on our ears. We long that we could fall asleep, and wake to find ourselves on the other side of the crisis we dread.So it was with the Crudens; and when at last the little trio stood on the Monday on the platform of Euston Station, all three felt that they would give anything to have the last few days back again.“I’ll write, mother, as often as ever I can,” said Reginald, trying to speak as if the words did not stick in his throat.“Tell us all about your quarters, and what you have to do, and all that,” said Horace.Mrs Cruden had no words. She stood with her eyes fixed on her boy, and felt she needed all her courage to do that steadily.“Horrors,” said Reg, as the guard locked the carriage door, and the usual silence which precedes the blowing of the whistle ensued, “keep your eye on young Gedge, will you? there’s a good fellow.”“I will, and I’ll—”But here the whistle sounded, and amid the farewells that followed, Reginald went out into his new world, leaving them behind, straining their eyes for a last look, but little dreaming how and when that little family should meet again.
The next day Reginald wrote and accepted the invitation of the directors of the Select Agency Corporation. He flattered himself he was acting deliberately, and after fully weighing the pros and cons of the question. True, he still knew very little about his new duties, and had yet to make the acquaintance of the Bishop of S— and the other directors. But, on the other hand, he had seen Mr Medlock, and heard what he had to say, and was quite satisfied in his own mind that everything was all right. And, greatest argument of all, he had no other place to go to, and £150 a year was a salary not to be thrown away when put into one’s hands.
Still, he felt a trifle uncomfortable about the necessity of going to Liverpool and breaking up the old home. Of course, he could not help himself, and Horace had no right to insinuate otherwise. All the same, it was a pity, and if there had not been the compensating certainty of being able to send up regular contributions to the family purse, which would help his mother to not a few comforts hitherto denied, he would have been more troubled still about it.
“What will you do about the £50?” said Horace next day, forcing himself to appear interested in what he inwardly disapproved.
“Oh,” said Reginald, “I’d intended to ask Richmond to lend it me. It’s not exactly a loan either; it would be the same as his investing in the company in my name. The money would be safe, and he’d get his interest into the bargain. But of course I can’t go to him now.”
“No; and I don’t know whom else you could ask,” said Horace.
“They might let me put in a pound a week out of my salary,” said Reginald. “That would still leave me two pounds a week, and of that I could send home at least twenty-five shillings.”
Horace mused.
“It seems to me rather queer to expect you to put the money in,” said he.
“It may be queer, but it’s their rule, Mr Medlock says.”
“And whatever does the Corporation do? It’s precious hazy to my mind.”
“I can’t tell you anything about it now,” said Reginald; “the concern is only just started, and I have promised to treat all Mr Medlock told me as confidential. But I’m quite satisfied in my mind, and you may be too, Horace.”
Horace did not feel encouraged to pursue the discussion after this, and went off alone to work in low spirits, and feeling unusually dismal.
“By the way,” said Reginald, as he started, “bring young Gedge home with you. I meant to see him last night, but forgot.”
Reginald spent the day uneasily for himself and his mother in trying to feel absolutely satisfied with the decision he had come to, and in speculating on his future work. Towards afternoon, weary of being all day in the house, he went out for a stroll. It was a beautiful day, and the prospect of a walk in the park by daylight was a tempting one.
As he was passing down Piccadilly, he became aware of some one approaching him whom he knew, and whom, in another moment, he recognised as Blandford.
There was some excuse certainly for not taking in his old schoolfellow’s identity all at once, for the boy he had known at Wilderham only a few months ago had suddenly blossomed forth into a man, and had exchanged the airy bearing of a school-boy for the half-languid swagger of a man about town.
“Hullo, Bland, old man!” exclaimed Reginald, lighting up jubilantly at the sight of an old familiar face, “how are you? Who would have thought of seeing you?”
Blandford was surprised too, and for a moment critically surveyed the boy in front of him before he replied.
“Ah, Cruden, that you? I shouldn’t have known you.”
Reginald’s face fell. He became suddenly aware, and for the first time in his life, that his clothes were shabby, and that his boots were in holes.
“I shouldn’t have known you,” he replied; “you look so much older than when I saw you last.”
“So I am; but, I say,” added Bland, reddening as an acquaintance passed and nodded to him, “I’m rather in a hurry, Cruden, just now. If you’re not engaged this evening, come and dine with me at seven at the Shades, and we can have a talk. Good-bye.”
And he went on hurriedly, leaving Reginald with an uncomfortable suspicion that if he—Reginald—had been more smartly dressed, and had worn gloves and a tall hat, the interview would have been more cordial and less hasty.
However, the longing he felt for the old happy days that were past decided him to appear at the Shades at the hour appointed, although it meant absence from home on one of his few remaining evenings, and, still more, a further desertion of young Gedge.
He repented of his resolution almost as soon as he had made it. What was to be gained by assuming a false position for an evening, and trying to delude himself into the notion that he was the equal of his old comrade? Did not his clothes, his empty pockets, the smart of Durfy’s tongue, and even the letter now on its way to Mr Medlock, all disprove it? And yet, three months ago, he was a better man all round than Blandford, who had been glad to claim his friendship and accept his father’s hospitality. Reginald rebelled against the idea that they two could still be anything to one another than the friends they had once been; but all the while the old school saw came back into his mind—that imposition sentence he had in his day written out hundreds of times without once thinking of its meaning:Tempora mutantur et nos mutamur in illis.
He reached the Shades a few minutes before seven, and waited outside till his friend arrived. He had not to wait long, for Blandford and a couple of companions drove up punctually in a hansom—all of them, to Reginald’s horror, being arrayed in full evening dress.
“Hullo, Cruden, you’ve turned up then,” said Blandford. “What, not in regimentals? You usen’t to be backward in that way. Never mind; they say dress after seven o’clock here, but they’re not strict. We can smuggle you in.”
Oh, how Reginald wished he was safe back in Dull Street!
“By the way,” continued Blandford, “these are two friends of mine, Cruden—Mr Shanklin and Mr Pillans. Cruden’s an old Wilderham fellow, you know,” he added, in an explanatory aside.
The gentleman introduced as Mr Shanklin stared curiously at Reginald for a few seconds, and then shook hands. Had the boy known as much of that gentleman as the reader does, he would probably have displayed considerably more interest in his new acquaintance than he did. As it was, he would have been glad of an excuse to avoid shaking hands with either him or his empty-headed companion, Mr Pillans. He went through the ceremony as stiffly as possible, and then followed the party within.
“Now, then,” said Blandford, as they sat down at one of the tables, “what do you say? It’ll save trouble to take the table d’hôte, eh? are you game, you fellows? Table d’hôte for four, waiter. What shall we have to drink? I say hock to start with.”
“I wont take any wine,” said Reginald, with an effort.
“Why not? You’re not a teetotaler, are you?”
“I won’t take any wine,” repeated Reginald decisively; and, to his satisfaction, he was allowed to do as he pleased.
The dinner passed as such entertainments usually do, diminishing in interest as it went on. In his happiest days, Reginald always hated what the boys used to call “feeds,” and he found that three months’ altered circumstances had by no means reconciled him to the infliction. He shirked the last two or three courses, and grew heartily tired of the sight of a plate.
“You wondered how I came to be in town?” said Blandford. “The fact is, my uncle went off the hooks a few weeks ago, and as I’m his heir, you know, I came up, and haven’t gone back yet. I don’t think I shall either.”
“No; what’s the use, with the pot of money you’ve come in for?” said Mr Shanklin. “You’re far more comfortable up in town.”
“Yes, andyou’rea nice boy to show a fellow about town,” said Blandford, laughing, “Wilderham’s all very well, you know, Cruden,” continued he, “but it’s a grind being cooped up there when you’ve got your chance of a fling.”
“Well, you’ve not wasted your chances, my boy,” said Mr Pillans, who, besides being empty-headed, was unhealthy in complexion, and red about the eyes.
Blandford appeared rather flattered than otherwise by this observation, and told Mr Pillans to shut up and not tell tales out of school.
“I suppose Wilderham hasn’t changed much since last term?” asked Reginald wistfully.
“Oh no; plenty of fellows left and new ones come—rather a better lot, take them all round, than we had last term.”
“Has the football club been doing well again?” asked the old boy.
“Oh, middling. By the way, the fellows growled rather when you only sent them half-a-sov. instead of a sov.”
Reginald coloured up. Little his comrade knew what that half-sovereign had cost him!
He relapsed into silence, and had to derive what compensation he could from the fast talk in which the other three engaged, apparently heedless of his presence.
In due time the meal ended, and Blandford called for the bills.
Until that moment Reginald had never imagined for a moment but that he had been dining as his old schoolfellow’s guest. He had understood Blandford’s request of his company as an invitation, and as an invitation he had accepted it, and as an invitation he had repented of it. What, then, was his embarrassment to find a bill for six shillings and sixpence laid down before him as his share of the entertainment!
For a moment a flush of relief passed across his face. He was glad not to find himself under obligations to Blandford after all. But in another moment relief was changed to horror as he remembered that three shillings was all the money he had about him. Oh, the humiliation, the anguish of this discovery! He would have had anything happen rather than this.
He sat staring at the bill like a being petrified.
“Come along,” said Blandford, “let’s go to the smoking-room. I suppose you fellows will have coffee there. Coffee for four, waiter. Are you ready?”
But Reginald did not move, nor did the waiter.
“What’s the row?” said Blandford to the latter.
The waiter pointed to Reginald’s bill.
“Oh, he’s waiting for your bill, Cruden. Look sharp, old man!”
The colour came and went in Reginald’s face, as though he had been charged with some hideous crime. And it seemed like a deliberate mockery of his trouble that his three companions and the waiter stood silent at the table, eyeing him, and waiting for his answer.
“I’m sorry,” he said at length, bringing up the words with a tremendous effort, “I find I’ve not money enough to pay it. I made a mistake in coming here.”
All four listeners stood with faces of mingled amazement and amusement at the boy’s agitation and the tragic manner in which he accounted for it. Any one else would have carried it off with a jest; but to Reginald it was like passing through the fire.
“Would you mind—may I trouble you—that is, will you lend me three-and-sixpence, Blandford?” he said at last.
Blandford burst out laughing.
“I thought at least you’d swallowed a silver spoon!” said he. “Here, waiter, I’ll settle that bill. How much is it?”
“No,” said Reginald, laying down his three shillings; “if you can lend me three-and-sixpence, that’s all I want.”
“Bosh!” said Blandford, pitching half a sovereign to the waiter; “take it out of that, and this coffee too, and come along into the smoking-room, you fellows.”
Reginald would fain have escaped; but the horrid dread of being suspected of caring more about his dinner than his company deterred him, and he followed dejectedly to the luxurious smoking-room of the Shades.
He positively refused to touch the coffee or the cigar, even though Blandford took care to remind him they had been paid for. Nor, except when spoken to, could he bring himself to open his lips or take part in the general talk.
Blandford, however, who, ever since the incident of the bill, seemed to consider himself entitled to play a patronising part towards his schoolfellow, continued to keep him from lapsing into obscurity.
“Where’s your brother living?” he asked presently.
“He’s in town, too,” said Reginald. “My mother and he and I live together.”
“Where? I’d like to call on your mother.”
“We live in Dull Street,” said Reginald, beginning in sheer desperation to pluck up heart and hang out no more false colours.
“Dull Street? That’s rather a shady locality, isn’t it?” said Mr Pillans.
Reginald rounded on him. Blandford might have a right to catechise him; but what business was it of this numbskull’s where he lived?
“You’re not obliged to go there,” he said, with a curl of his lip, “unless you like.”
Mr Shanklin smiled at this sally, a demonstration which considerably incensed the not too amiable Mr Pillans.
“I’ll take precious care I don’t,” said the latter.
Reginald said “Thanks!” drily, and in a way so cutting that Mr Shanklin and Blandford both laughed this time.
“Look here,” said the unwholesome Pillans, looking very warm, “what do you say that for? Do you want to cheek me?”
“Don’t be a fool, Pillans. It doesn’t matter to you where he lives,” said Blandford.
“Thank goodness it don’t—or whether he pays his rent either.”
“It’s a pity you had to leave Garden Vale,” said Blandford, apparently anxious to turn the conversation into a more pacific channel; “such a jolly place it was. What do you do with yourself all day long in town?”
Reginald smiled.
“I work for my living,” said he, keeping his eye steadily fixed on Mr Pillans, as if waiting to catch the first sign of an insult on his part.
“That’s what we all do, more or less,” said Mr Shanklin. “Blandford here works like a nigger to spend his money, don’t you, old man?”
“I do so,” said Blandford, “with your valuable assistance.”
“And with somebody else’s assistance too,” said Mr Pillans, with a shrug in the direction of Reginald.
Reginald understood the taunt, and rose to his feet.
“You’re not going?” said Blandford.
“I am. I don’t forget I owe you for my dinner, Blandford; and I shan’t forget that I owe you also for introducing me to a blackguard. Good-night.”
And without allowing his hearers time to recover from the astonishment into which these words had thrown them, he marched out of the Shades with his head in the air.
It was a minute before any of the three disconcerted companions could recover the gift of speech. At last Mr Shanklin burst out into a laugh.
“Capital, that was,” he said; “there’s something in the fellow. And,” he added internally, and not in the hearing of either of his companions, “if he’s the same fellow Medlock has hooked, our fortune’s made.”
“All very well,” said Pillans; “but he called me a blackguard.”
This simple discovery caused still greater merriment at the expense of the outraged owner of the appellation.
“I’ve a good mind to go after him, and pull his nose,” growled he.
“Nothing would please him better,” said Blandford. “But you’d better leave your own nose behind, my boy, before you start, or there won’t be much of it left. I know Cruden of old.”
“You won’t see much more of him now,” sneered Pillans, “now he owes you for his dinner.”
“It strikes me, Bland was never safer of a six-and-six in his life than he is of the one he lent to-night,” said Mr Shanklin. “Unless I’m mistaken, the fellow would walk across England on his bare feet to pay it back.”
Mr Shanklin, it was evident, could appreciate honesty in any one else. He was highly delighted with what he had seen of the new secretary. If anything could float the Select Agency Corporation, the lad’s unsuspicious honesty would do it. In fact, things were looking up all round for the precious confederates. With Reginald to supply them with honesty, with easy-going spendthrifts, like Blandford and Pillans, to supply them with money, and with a cad like Durfy to do their dirty work for them, they were in as comfortable and hopeful a way as the promoters of such an enterprise could reasonably hope to be.
The trio at the Shades soon forgot Reginald in the delights of one another’s sweet society. They played billiards, at which Mr Shanklin won. They also played cards, at which, by a singular coincidence, Mr Shanklin won too. They then went to call on a friend who knew the “straight tip” for the Saint Leger, and under his advice they laid out a good deal of money, which (such are the freaks of fortune) also found its way somehow into Mr Shanklin’s pocket-book. Finally, they supped together, and then went home to bed, each one under the delusion that he had spent a very pleasant evening.
Reginald was far from sharing the same opinion as he paced home that evening. How glad he should be to be out of this hateful London, where everything went wrong, and reminded him that he was a pauper, dependent on others for his living, for his clothes, for his—faugh! for his dinner! Happily he had not to endure it much longer. At Liverpool, he would be independent. He would hold a position not degrading to a gentleman; he would associate with men of intellect and breeding; he would even have the joy of helping his mother to many a little luxury which, as long as he remained in London, he could never have given her. He quickened his pace, and reached home. Gedge had been there, spiritless and forlorn, and had left as soon as he could excuse himself.
“Out of sight, out of mind,” he had said, with a forced laugh, to Horace when the latter expressed his regret at Reginald’s absence.
Mrs Cruden and Horace both tried to look cheerful; but the cloud on the horizon was too large now to be covered with a hand.
When Reginald announced that he had written and accepted the invitation to Liverpool, there was no jubilation, no eager congratulation.
“What shall we do without you?” said Mrs Cruden.
“It is horrid having to go, mother,” said the boy; “but we must make the best of it. If you look so unhappy, I shall be sorry I ever thought of it.”
His mother tried to smile, and said,—
“Yes, we must try and make the best of it, dear boys; and if we cannot seem as glad as we should like to be, it’s not to be wondered at at first, is it?”
“I hope you’ll get holidays enough now and then to run up,” said Horace.
“Oh yes; I don’t fancy there’ll be much difficulty about that,” replied Reg. “In fact, it’s possible I may have to come up now and then on business.”
There was a silence for a few seconds, and then he added rather nervously,—
“By the way, mother, about the £50. I had intended to ask Mr Richmond to advance it, although I should have hated to do so. But now, I was wondering—do you think there would be any objection to taking it out of our money, and letting it be invested in my name in the Corporation? It really wouldn’t make any difference, for you’d get exactly the same interest for it as you got through Mr Richmond; and, of course, the principal would belong to you too.”
“I see no objection,” said Mrs Cruden. “It’s our common stock, and if we can use it for the common good, so much the better.”
“Thanks,” said Reginald. “If you wouldn’t mind sending a line to Mr Richmond’s clerk to-morrow, he could let me have the cheque to take down or Monday with me.”
The three days that followed were dismal ones for the three Crudens. There are few miseries like that of an impending separation. We wish the fatal moment to arrive and end our suspense. We know of a thousand things we want to say, but the time slips by wasted, and hangs drearily on our hands. We have not the spirit to look forward, or the heart to look back. We long to have it all over, and yet every stroke of the clock falls like a cruel knell on our ears. We long that we could fall asleep, and wake to find ourselves on the other side of the crisis we dread.
So it was with the Crudens; and when at last the little trio stood on the Monday on the platform of Euston Station, all three felt that they would give anything to have the last few days back again.
“I’ll write, mother, as often as ever I can,” said Reginald, trying to speak as if the words did not stick in his throat.
“Tell us all about your quarters, and what you have to do, and all that,” said Horace.
Mrs Cruden had no words. She stood with her eyes fixed on her boy, and felt she needed all her courage to do that steadily.
“Horrors,” said Reg, as the guard locked the carriage door, and the usual silence which precedes the blowing of the whistle ensued, “keep your eye on young Gedge, will you? there’s a good fellow.”
“I will, and I’ll—”
But here the whistle sounded, and amid the farewells that followed, Reginald went out into his new world, leaving them behind, straining their eyes for a last look, but little dreaming how and when that little family should meet again.
Chapter Twelve.Horace learns an Art, pays a Bill, and lends a Helping Hand.“I say, Cruden,” said Waterford to Horace one morning, shortly after Reginald’s departure from London, “I shall get jealous if you don’t pull up.”“Jealous of me?” said Horace. “Whatever for?”“Why, before you came I flattered myself I was a bit of a dab at the scissors-and-paste business, but you’ve gone and cut me out completely.”“What rot!” said Horace, laughing. “There’s more than enough cutting out to do with the morning papers to leave any time for operating on you. Besides, any duffer can do work like that.”“That’s all very well,” said Waterford. “There’s only one duffer here that can do as much as me and Booms put together, and that’s you. Now, if you weren’t such a racehorse, I’d propose to you to join our shorthand class. You’ll have to learn it some time or other, you know.”“The very thing I’d like,” said Horace. “That is,” he added, “if it won’t take up all a fellow’s evenings. How often are the classes?”“Well, as often as we like. Generally once a week. Booms’s washerwoman—”“Whatever has she to do with shorthand?” asked Horace.“More than you think, my boy. She always takes eight days to wash his collars and cuffs. He sends them to her on Wednesdays, and gets them back on the next day week, so that we always practise shorthand on the Wednesday evening. Don’t we, Booms?” he inquired, as the proud owner of that name entered the office at that moment.“There you are,” sighed he. “How do I know what you are talking about?”“I was saying we always worked up our shorthand on Wednesday evenings.”“If you say so,” said the melancholy one, “it must be so.”“I was telling Cruden he might join us this winter.”“Very well,” said the other, resignedly; “but where are you going to meet? Mrs Megson has gone away, and we’ve no reader.”“Bother you, Booms, for always spotting difficulties in a thing. You see,” added he, to Horace, “we used to meet at a good lady’s house who kept a day school. She let us go there one evening a week, and read aloud to us, for us to take it down in shorthand. She’s gone now, bad luck to her, and the worst of it is we’re bound to get a lady to take us in, as we’ve got ladies in our class, you see.”At the mention of ladies Booms groaned deeply.“Why, I tell you what,” said Horace, struck by a brilliant idea. “What should you say to my mother? I think she would be delighted; and if you want a good reader aloud, she’s the very woman for you.”Waterford clapped his friend enthusiastically on the back.“You’re a trump, Cruden, to lend us your mother; isn’t he, Booms?”“Oh yes,” said Booms. “I’ve seen her, and—” here he appeared to undergo a mental struggle—“I like her.”“At any rate, I’ll sound her on the matter. By the way, she’ll want to know who the ladies are.”“It’ll only be one this winter, I’m afraid,” said Waterford, “as the Megsons have gone. It’s a Miss Crisp, Cruden, a friend of Booms’s, who—”“Whom I met the other night at the Shucklefords’?” said Horace.Booms answered the question with such an agonised sigh that both his companions burst out laughing.“Dear old Booms can tell you more about her than I can,” said Waterford. “All I know is she’s a very nice girl indeed.”“I agree with you,” said Horace; “I’m sure she is. You think so too, don’t you, Booms?”“You don’t know what I think,” said Booms; which was very true.One difficulty still remained, and this appeared to trouble Horace considerably.He did not like to refer to it as long as the melancholy masher was present, but as soon as he had gone in to fetch the papers, Horace inquired of his friend,—“I say, Waterford, do you mean to say he chooses the very night he hasn’t got a high collar to—”“Hush!” cried Waterford, mysteriously, “it’s a sore question with him; buthe couldn’t write if he had one. We never mention it, though.”It is needless to say Mrs Cruden fell in most cordially with the new proposal. She needed little persuasion to induce her to agree to a plan which meant the bright presence of her son and his friends in her house, and it gave her special satisfaction to find her services on such occasions not only invited, but indispensable; and it is doubtful whether any of the party looked forward more eagerly to the cheery Wednesday evenings than she did.It was up-hill work, of course, for Horace, at first; in fact, during the first evening he could do nothing but sit and admire the pace at which Miss Crisp, followed more haltingly by Booms and Waterford, took down the words ofIvanhoeas fast as Mrs Cruden read them. But, by dint of hard, unsparing practice, he was able, a week later, to make some sort of a show, and as the lessons went on he even had the delight of finding himself, as Waterford said, ‘in the running’ with his fellow-scholars. This success was not achieved without considerable determination on the boy’s part; but Horace, when he did take a thing up, went through with it. He gave himself no relaxation for the first week or two. Every evening after supper he produced his pencil and paper, and his mother produced her book, and for two steady hours the work went on. Even at the office, in the intervals of work, he reported everything his ears could catch, not excepting the melancholy utterances of Booms and the vulgar conversation of the errand-boy.One day the sub-editor summoned him to the inner room to give him some instructions as to a letter to be written, when the boy much astonished his chief by taking a note of every word, and producing the letter in a few moments in the identical language in which it had been dictated.“You know shorthand, then?” inquired the mild sub-editor.“Yes, sir, a little.”“I did not know of this before.”“No, sir; I only began lately. Booms and Waterford and I are all working it up.”The sub-editor said nothing just then, but in future availed himself freely of the new talent of his juniors. And what was still more satisfactory, it was intimated not many days later to Horace from headquarters, that as he appeared to be making himself generally useful, the nominal wages at which he had been admitted would be increased henceforth to twenty-four shillings a week.This piece of good fortune was most opportune; for now that Reginald’s weekly contribution was withdrawn, and pending the payment of his first quarter’s salary at Christmas, the family means had been sorely reduced, and Horace and his mother had been hard put to it to make both ends meet. Even with this augmented pay it might still have been beyond accomplishment had not their income been still further improved in a manner which Horace little suspected, and which, had he known, would have sorely distressed him.Mrs Cruden, between whom and the bright Miss Crisp a pleasant friendship had sprung up, had, almost the first time the two ladies found themselves together, inquired of her new acquaintance as to the possibility of finding any light employment for herself during the hours when she was alone. Miss Crisp, as it happened, did know of some work, though hardly to be called light work, which she herself, having just at present other duties on hand, had been obliged to decline. This was the transcribing of the manuscript of a novel, written by a lady, in a handwriting so enigmatical that the publishers would not look at it unless presented in a legible form. The lady was, therefore, anxious to get it copied out, and had offered Miss Crisp a small sum for the service. Mrs Cruden clutched eagerly at the opportunity thus presented. The work was laborious and dreary in the extreme, for the story was long and insipid, and the wretched handwriting danced under her eyes till they ached and grew weak. But she persevered boldly, and for three hours a day pored over her self-imposed task. When Horace returned at evening no trace of it was to be seen, only the pale face and weary eyes of his mother, who yet was ready with a smile to read aloud as long as the boy wished, and pretend that she only enjoyed a labour which was really taxing her both in health and eyesight.Reginald had written home once or twice since his departure, but none of his letters had contained much news. He said very little either about his work or his employers, but from the dismal tone in which he drew comparisons between London and Liverpool, and between his present loneliness and days before their separation, it was evident enough he was homesick. In a letter to Horace he said,—“I get precious little time just now for anything but work, and what I do get I don’t know a soul here to spend it with. There’s a football club here, but of course I can’t join it. I go walks occasionally, though I can’t get far, as I cannot be away from here for long at a time, and never of an evening. You might send me aRocketnow and then, or something to read. What about young Gedge? See Durfy doesn’t get hold of him. Could you ever scrape up six-and-six, and pay it for me to Blandford, whose address I give below? It’s something he lent me for a particular purpose when I last saw him. Do try. I would enclose it, but till Christmas I have scarcely enough to keep myself. I wish they would pay weekly instead of quarterly. I would be awfully obliged if you would manage to pay the six-and-six somehow or other. If you do, see he gets it, and knows it comes from me, and send me a line to say he has got it. Don’t forget, there’s a brick. Love to mother and young Gedge. I wish I could see you all this minute.”Horace felt decidedly blue after receiving this letter, and purposely withheld it from his mother. Had he been sure Reginald was prosperous and happy in his new work, this separation would not have mattered so much, but all along he had had his doubts on both these points, and the letter only confirmed them.At any rate he determined to lose no time in easing his brother’s mind of the two chief causes of his anxiety. The very next Saturday he appropriated six-and-six of his slender wages, and devoted the evening to finding out Blandford’s rooms, and paying him the money.Fortunately his man was at home, an unusual circumstance at that hour of the night, and due solely to the fact that he and Pillans, his fellow-lodger, were expecting company; indeed, the page-boy (for our two gay sparks maintained a “tiger” between them) showed Horace up the moment he arrived, under the delusion that he was one of the guests. Blandford and his friend, sitting in state to receive their distinguished visitors, among whom were to be the real owner of a racehorse, a real jockey, a real actor, and a real wine-merchant, these open-hearted and knowing young men were considerably taken aback to find a boy of Horace’s age and toilet ushered into their august presence. Blandford would have preferred to appear ignorant of the identity of the intruder, but Horace left him no room for that amiable fraud.“Hullo, Bland!” said he, just as if he had seen him only yesterday at Wilderham, “what a jolly lot of stairs you keep in this place. I thought I should never smoke you out. How are you, old man?”And before the horrified dandy could recover from his surprise, he found his hand being warmly shaken by his old schoolfellow.Horace, sublimely unconscious of the impression he was creating, indulged in a critical survey of the apartment, and said,—“Snug little crib you’ve got—not quite so jolly, though, as the old study you and Reg had at Wilderham. How’s Harker, by the way?”And he proceeded to stroll across the room to look at a picture.Blandford and Pillans exchanged glances. Wrath was in the face of the one, bewilderment in the face of the other.“Who’s your friend?” whispered the latter.“An old schoolfellow who—”“Nice lot of fellows you seem to have been brought up with, upon my word,” said Mr Pillans.“I suppose he’ll be up for Christmas,” pursued Horace. “Jolly glad I shall be to see him, too. I say, why don’t you come and look us up? Thematerwould be awfully glad, though we’ve not very showy quarters to ask you to. Ah! that’s one of the prints you had in the study at school. Do you remember Reg chipping that corner of the frame with a singlestick?”“Excuse me, Cruden,” began Blandford, in a severe tone; “my friend and I are just expecting company.”“Are you? Well, I couldn’t have stayed if you’d asked me. Are any of the old school lot coming?”“The fact is, we can do without you, young fellow,” said Mr Pillans.Horace stared. It had not occurred to him till that moment that his old schoolfellow could be anything but glad to see him, and he didn’t believe it now.“Will Harker be coming?” he inquired, ignoring Mr Pillans’ presence.“No, no one you know is coming,” said Blandford, half angrily, half nervously.“That’s a pity. I’d have liked to see some of the old lot. Ever since we came to grief none of them has been near us except Harker. He called one day, like a brick, but he won’t be up again till Christmas.”“Good-night,” said Blandford.His tone was quite lost on Horace.“Good-night, old man. By the way, Reg—you know he’s up in the North now—asked me to pay you six-and-six he owed you. He said you’d know about it. Is it all right?”Blandford coloured up violently.“I’m not going to take it. I told him so,” said he. “Oh yes, you are, you old humbug,” said Horace, “so catch hold. A debt’s a debt, you know.”“It’s not a debt,” said Blandford. “I gave it to him, so good-night.”“No, that won’t do,” said Horace. “He doesn’t think so—”“The fact is, the beggar couldn’t pay for his own dinner, and Blandford had to pay it for him. He managed it very neatly,” said Mr Pillans.Horace fired up fiercely.“What do you mean? Who’s this cad you keep about the place, Blandford?”“If you don’t go I’ll kick you down the stairs!” cried Mr Pillans, by this time in a rage.Horace laughed. Mr Pillans was his senior in years and his superior in inches, but there was nothing in his unhealthy face to dismay the sturdy school-boy.“Do you want me to try?” shouted Mr Pillans.“Not unless you like,” replied Horace, putting the money down on the table and holding out his hand to Blandford.The latter took it mechanically, too glad to see his visitor departing to offer any obstacle.“I’ll look you up again some day,” said Horace, “when your bulldog here is chained up. When Reg and Harker are up this Christmas, we must all get a day together. Good-night.”And he made for the door, brushing up against the outraged Mr Pillans on his way.“Take that for an impudent young beggar!” said the latter as he passed, suiting the action to the word with a smart cuff directed at the visitor’s head.Horace, however, was quick enough to ward it off.“I thought you’d try that on,” he said, with a laugh; “you’re—”But Mr Pillans, who had by this time worked himself into a fury by a method known only to himself, cut short further parley by making a desperate rush at him just as he reached the door.The wary Horace had not played football for three seasons for nothing. He quietly ducked, allowing his unscientific assailant to overbalance himself, and topple head first on the lobby outside, at the particular moment when the real owner of the racehorse and the real wine-merchant, who had just arrived, reached the top of the stairs.“Hullo, young fellow!” said the sporting gentleman; “practising croppers, are you? or getting up an appetite? or what? High old times you’re having up here among you! Who’s the kid?”“Stop him!” gasped Pillans, picking himself up; “don’t let him go! hold him fast!”The wine-merchant obligingly took possession of Horace by the collar, and the company returned in solemn procession to the room.“Now, then,” said Horace’s captor, “what’s the row? Let’s hear all about it. Has he been collaring any of your spoons? or setting the house on fire? or what? Who is he?”“He’s cheeked me!” said Pillans, brushing the dust off his coat. “Hold him fast, will you? till I take it out of him.”But the horse-racer was far too much of a sportsman for that.“No, no,” said he, laughing; “make a mill of it and I’m your man. I’ll bet two to one on the young ’un to start with.”The wine-merchant said he would go double that on Pillans, whereupon the sporting man offered a five-pound note against a half-sovereign on his man, and called out to have the room cleared and a sponge brought in.How far his scientific enthusiasm would have been rewarded it is hard to say, for Blandford at this juncture most inconsiderately interposed.“No, no,” said he, “I’m not going to have the place made a cock-pit. Shut up, Pillans, and don’t make an ass of yourself; and you, Cruden, cut off. What did you ever come here for? See what a row you’ve made.”“It wasn’t I made the row,” said Horace. “I’m awfully sorry, Bland. I’d advise you to cut that friend of yours, I say. He’s an idiot. Good-bye.”And while the horse-racer and the wine-merchant were still discussing preliminaries, and Mr Pillans was privately ascertaining whether his nose was bleeding, Horace departed in peace, partly amused, partly vexed, and decidedly of opinion that Blandford had taken to keeping very queer company since he last saw him.The great thing was that Horace could now write and report to Reg that the debt had been paid.His way home led him past theRocketoffice. It was half-past ten, and the place looked dark and deserted. Even the lights in the editor’s windows were out, and the late hands had gone home. Just at the corner Horace encountered Gedge, one of the late hands in question.“Hullo, young ’un!” he said. “Going home?”“Yes, I’m going home,” said young Gedge.“I heard from my brother yesterday. He was asking after you.”“Was he?” said the boy half-sarcastically. “He does remember my name, then?”“Whatever do you mean? Of course he does,” said Horace. “You know that well enough.”“I shouldn’t have known it unless you’d told me,” said Gedge, with a cloud on his face; “he’s never sent me a word since he left.”“He’s been awfully busy—he’s scarcely had time to write home. I say, young ’un, what’s the row with you? What makes you so queer?”“Oh, I don’t know,” said the boy wearily; “I used to fancy somebody cared for me, but I was mistaken. I was going to the dogs fast enough when Cruden came here; I pulled up then, because I thought he’d stand by me; but now he’s gone and forgotten all about me. I’ll—well, there’s nothing to prevent me going to the bad; and I may as well make up my mind to it.”“No, no,” said Horace, taking his arm kindly; “you mustn’t say that, young ’un. The last words Reg said to me when he went off were, ‘Keep your eye on young Gedge, don’t forget’; the very last words, and he’s reminded me of my promise in every letter since. I’ve been a cad, I know, not to see more of you; but you mustn’t go thinking that you’ve no friends. If it were only for Reg’s sake I’d stick to you. Don’t blame him, though, for I know he thinks a lot about you, and it would break his heart if you went to the bad. Of course you can help going to the bad, old man; we can all help it.”The boy looked up with the clouds half brushed away from his face.“I don’t want to go to the bad,” said he; “but I sort of feel I’m bound to go, unless some one sticks up for me. I’m so awfully weak-minded, I’m not fit to be trusted alone.”“Hullo, I say,” whispered Horace, suddenly stopping short in his walk, “who’s that fellow sneaking about there by the editor’s door?”“He looks precious like Durfy,” said Gedge; “I believe it is he.”“What does he want there, I wonder—he wasn’t on the late shift to-night, was he?”“No; he went at seven.”“I don’t see what he wants hanging about when everybody’s gone,” said Horace.“Unless he’s screwed and can’t get home—I’ve known him like that. That fellow’s not screwed, though,” he added; “see, he’s heard some one coming, and he’s off steady enough on his legs.”“Rum,” said Horace. “It looked like Durfy, too. Never mind, whoever it is, we’ve routed him out this time. Good-night, old man; don’t go down on your luck, mind, and don’t go abusing Reg behind his back, and don’t forget you’re booked to come home to supper with me on Monday, and see my mother. Ta-ta.”
“I say, Cruden,” said Waterford to Horace one morning, shortly after Reginald’s departure from London, “I shall get jealous if you don’t pull up.”
“Jealous of me?” said Horace. “Whatever for?”
“Why, before you came I flattered myself I was a bit of a dab at the scissors-and-paste business, but you’ve gone and cut me out completely.”
“What rot!” said Horace, laughing. “There’s more than enough cutting out to do with the morning papers to leave any time for operating on you. Besides, any duffer can do work like that.”
“That’s all very well,” said Waterford. “There’s only one duffer here that can do as much as me and Booms put together, and that’s you. Now, if you weren’t such a racehorse, I’d propose to you to join our shorthand class. You’ll have to learn it some time or other, you know.”
“The very thing I’d like,” said Horace. “That is,” he added, “if it won’t take up all a fellow’s evenings. How often are the classes?”
“Well, as often as we like. Generally once a week. Booms’s washerwoman—”
“Whatever has she to do with shorthand?” asked Horace.
“More than you think, my boy. She always takes eight days to wash his collars and cuffs. He sends them to her on Wednesdays, and gets them back on the next day week, so that we always practise shorthand on the Wednesday evening. Don’t we, Booms?” he inquired, as the proud owner of that name entered the office at that moment.
“There you are,” sighed he. “How do I know what you are talking about?”
“I was saying we always worked up our shorthand on Wednesday evenings.”
“If you say so,” said the melancholy one, “it must be so.”
“I was telling Cruden he might join us this winter.”
“Very well,” said the other, resignedly; “but where are you going to meet? Mrs Megson has gone away, and we’ve no reader.”
“Bother you, Booms, for always spotting difficulties in a thing. You see,” added he, to Horace, “we used to meet at a good lady’s house who kept a day school. She let us go there one evening a week, and read aloud to us, for us to take it down in shorthand. She’s gone now, bad luck to her, and the worst of it is we’re bound to get a lady to take us in, as we’ve got ladies in our class, you see.”
At the mention of ladies Booms groaned deeply.
“Why, I tell you what,” said Horace, struck by a brilliant idea. “What should you say to my mother? I think she would be delighted; and if you want a good reader aloud, she’s the very woman for you.”
Waterford clapped his friend enthusiastically on the back.
“You’re a trump, Cruden, to lend us your mother; isn’t he, Booms?”
“Oh yes,” said Booms. “I’ve seen her, and—” here he appeared to undergo a mental struggle—“I like her.”
“At any rate, I’ll sound her on the matter. By the way, she’ll want to know who the ladies are.”
“It’ll only be one this winter, I’m afraid,” said Waterford, “as the Megsons have gone. It’s a Miss Crisp, Cruden, a friend of Booms’s, who—”
“Whom I met the other night at the Shucklefords’?” said Horace.
Booms answered the question with such an agonised sigh that both his companions burst out laughing.
“Dear old Booms can tell you more about her than I can,” said Waterford. “All I know is she’s a very nice girl indeed.”
“I agree with you,” said Horace; “I’m sure she is. You think so too, don’t you, Booms?”
“You don’t know what I think,” said Booms; which was very true.
One difficulty still remained, and this appeared to trouble Horace considerably.
He did not like to refer to it as long as the melancholy masher was present, but as soon as he had gone in to fetch the papers, Horace inquired of his friend,—
“I say, Waterford, do you mean to say he chooses the very night he hasn’t got a high collar to—”
“Hush!” cried Waterford, mysteriously, “it’s a sore question with him; buthe couldn’t write if he had one. We never mention it, though.”
It is needless to say Mrs Cruden fell in most cordially with the new proposal. She needed little persuasion to induce her to agree to a plan which meant the bright presence of her son and his friends in her house, and it gave her special satisfaction to find her services on such occasions not only invited, but indispensable; and it is doubtful whether any of the party looked forward more eagerly to the cheery Wednesday evenings than she did.
It was up-hill work, of course, for Horace, at first; in fact, during the first evening he could do nothing but sit and admire the pace at which Miss Crisp, followed more haltingly by Booms and Waterford, took down the words ofIvanhoeas fast as Mrs Cruden read them. But, by dint of hard, unsparing practice, he was able, a week later, to make some sort of a show, and as the lessons went on he even had the delight of finding himself, as Waterford said, ‘in the running’ with his fellow-scholars. This success was not achieved without considerable determination on the boy’s part; but Horace, when he did take a thing up, went through with it. He gave himself no relaxation for the first week or two. Every evening after supper he produced his pencil and paper, and his mother produced her book, and for two steady hours the work went on. Even at the office, in the intervals of work, he reported everything his ears could catch, not excepting the melancholy utterances of Booms and the vulgar conversation of the errand-boy.
One day the sub-editor summoned him to the inner room to give him some instructions as to a letter to be written, when the boy much astonished his chief by taking a note of every word, and producing the letter in a few moments in the identical language in which it had been dictated.
“You know shorthand, then?” inquired the mild sub-editor.
“Yes, sir, a little.”
“I did not know of this before.”
“No, sir; I only began lately. Booms and Waterford and I are all working it up.”
The sub-editor said nothing just then, but in future availed himself freely of the new talent of his juniors. And what was still more satisfactory, it was intimated not many days later to Horace from headquarters, that as he appeared to be making himself generally useful, the nominal wages at which he had been admitted would be increased henceforth to twenty-four shillings a week.
This piece of good fortune was most opportune; for now that Reginald’s weekly contribution was withdrawn, and pending the payment of his first quarter’s salary at Christmas, the family means had been sorely reduced, and Horace and his mother had been hard put to it to make both ends meet. Even with this augmented pay it might still have been beyond accomplishment had not their income been still further improved in a manner which Horace little suspected, and which, had he known, would have sorely distressed him.
Mrs Cruden, between whom and the bright Miss Crisp a pleasant friendship had sprung up, had, almost the first time the two ladies found themselves together, inquired of her new acquaintance as to the possibility of finding any light employment for herself during the hours when she was alone. Miss Crisp, as it happened, did know of some work, though hardly to be called light work, which she herself, having just at present other duties on hand, had been obliged to decline. This was the transcribing of the manuscript of a novel, written by a lady, in a handwriting so enigmatical that the publishers would not look at it unless presented in a legible form. The lady was, therefore, anxious to get it copied out, and had offered Miss Crisp a small sum for the service. Mrs Cruden clutched eagerly at the opportunity thus presented. The work was laborious and dreary in the extreme, for the story was long and insipid, and the wretched handwriting danced under her eyes till they ached and grew weak. But she persevered boldly, and for three hours a day pored over her self-imposed task. When Horace returned at evening no trace of it was to be seen, only the pale face and weary eyes of his mother, who yet was ready with a smile to read aloud as long as the boy wished, and pretend that she only enjoyed a labour which was really taxing her both in health and eyesight.
Reginald had written home once or twice since his departure, but none of his letters had contained much news. He said very little either about his work or his employers, but from the dismal tone in which he drew comparisons between London and Liverpool, and between his present loneliness and days before their separation, it was evident enough he was homesick. In a letter to Horace he said,—
“I get precious little time just now for anything but work, and what I do get I don’t know a soul here to spend it with. There’s a football club here, but of course I can’t join it. I go walks occasionally, though I can’t get far, as I cannot be away from here for long at a time, and never of an evening. You might send me aRocketnow and then, or something to read. What about young Gedge? See Durfy doesn’t get hold of him. Could you ever scrape up six-and-six, and pay it for me to Blandford, whose address I give below? It’s something he lent me for a particular purpose when I last saw him. Do try. I would enclose it, but till Christmas I have scarcely enough to keep myself. I wish they would pay weekly instead of quarterly. I would be awfully obliged if you would manage to pay the six-and-six somehow or other. If you do, see he gets it, and knows it comes from me, and send me a line to say he has got it. Don’t forget, there’s a brick. Love to mother and young Gedge. I wish I could see you all this minute.”
Horace felt decidedly blue after receiving this letter, and purposely withheld it from his mother. Had he been sure Reginald was prosperous and happy in his new work, this separation would not have mattered so much, but all along he had had his doubts on both these points, and the letter only confirmed them.
At any rate he determined to lose no time in easing his brother’s mind of the two chief causes of his anxiety. The very next Saturday he appropriated six-and-six of his slender wages, and devoted the evening to finding out Blandford’s rooms, and paying him the money.
Fortunately his man was at home, an unusual circumstance at that hour of the night, and due solely to the fact that he and Pillans, his fellow-lodger, were expecting company; indeed, the page-boy (for our two gay sparks maintained a “tiger” between them) showed Horace up the moment he arrived, under the delusion that he was one of the guests. Blandford and his friend, sitting in state to receive their distinguished visitors, among whom were to be the real owner of a racehorse, a real jockey, a real actor, and a real wine-merchant, these open-hearted and knowing young men were considerably taken aback to find a boy of Horace’s age and toilet ushered into their august presence. Blandford would have preferred to appear ignorant of the identity of the intruder, but Horace left him no room for that amiable fraud.
“Hullo, Bland!” said he, just as if he had seen him only yesterday at Wilderham, “what a jolly lot of stairs you keep in this place. I thought I should never smoke you out. How are you, old man?”
And before the horrified dandy could recover from his surprise, he found his hand being warmly shaken by his old schoolfellow.
Horace, sublimely unconscious of the impression he was creating, indulged in a critical survey of the apartment, and said,—
“Snug little crib you’ve got—not quite so jolly, though, as the old study you and Reg had at Wilderham. How’s Harker, by the way?”
And he proceeded to stroll across the room to look at a picture.
Blandford and Pillans exchanged glances. Wrath was in the face of the one, bewilderment in the face of the other.
“Who’s your friend?” whispered the latter.
“An old schoolfellow who—”
“Nice lot of fellows you seem to have been brought up with, upon my word,” said Mr Pillans.
“I suppose he’ll be up for Christmas,” pursued Horace. “Jolly glad I shall be to see him, too. I say, why don’t you come and look us up? Thematerwould be awfully glad, though we’ve not very showy quarters to ask you to. Ah! that’s one of the prints you had in the study at school. Do you remember Reg chipping that corner of the frame with a singlestick?”
“Excuse me, Cruden,” began Blandford, in a severe tone; “my friend and I are just expecting company.”
“Are you? Well, I couldn’t have stayed if you’d asked me. Are any of the old school lot coming?”
“The fact is, we can do without you, young fellow,” said Mr Pillans.
Horace stared. It had not occurred to him till that moment that his old schoolfellow could be anything but glad to see him, and he didn’t believe it now.
“Will Harker be coming?” he inquired, ignoring Mr Pillans’ presence.
“No, no one you know is coming,” said Blandford, half angrily, half nervously.
“That’s a pity. I’d have liked to see some of the old lot. Ever since we came to grief none of them has been near us except Harker. He called one day, like a brick, but he won’t be up again till Christmas.”
“Good-night,” said Blandford.
His tone was quite lost on Horace.
“Good-night, old man. By the way, Reg—you know he’s up in the North now—asked me to pay you six-and-six he owed you. He said you’d know about it. Is it all right?”
Blandford coloured up violently.
“I’m not going to take it. I told him so,” said he. “Oh yes, you are, you old humbug,” said Horace, “so catch hold. A debt’s a debt, you know.”
“It’s not a debt,” said Blandford. “I gave it to him, so good-night.”
“No, that won’t do,” said Horace. “He doesn’t think so—”
“The fact is, the beggar couldn’t pay for his own dinner, and Blandford had to pay it for him. He managed it very neatly,” said Mr Pillans.
Horace fired up fiercely.
“What do you mean? Who’s this cad you keep about the place, Blandford?”
“If you don’t go I’ll kick you down the stairs!” cried Mr Pillans, by this time in a rage.
Horace laughed. Mr Pillans was his senior in years and his superior in inches, but there was nothing in his unhealthy face to dismay the sturdy school-boy.
“Do you want me to try?” shouted Mr Pillans.
“Not unless you like,” replied Horace, putting the money down on the table and holding out his hand to Blandford.
The latter took it mechanically, too glad to see his visitor departing to offer any obstacle.
“I’ll look you up again some day,” said Horace, “when your bulldog here is chained up. When Reg and Harker are up this Christmas, we must all get a day together. Good-night.”
And he made for the door, brushing up against the outraged Mr Pillans on his way.
“Take that for an impudent young beggar!” said the latter as he passed, suiting the action to the word with a smart cuff directed at the visitor’s head.
Horace, however, was quick enough to ward it off.
“I thought you’d try that on,” he said, with a laugh; “you’re—”
But Mr Pillans, who had by this time worked himself into a fury by a method known only to himself, cut short further parley by making a desperate rush at him just as he reached the door.
The wary Horace had not played football for three seasons for nothing. He quietly ducked, allowing his unscientific assailant to overbalance himself, and topple head first on the lobby outside, at the particular moment when the real owner of the racehorse and the real wine-merchant, who had just arrived, reached the top of the stairs.
“Hullo, young fellow!” said the sporting gentleman; “practising croppers, are you? or getting up an appetite? or what? High old times you’re having up here among you! Who’s the kid?”
“Stop him!” gasped Pillans, picking himself up; “don’t let him go! hold him fast!”
The wine-merchant obligingly took possession of Horace by the collar, and the company returned in solemn procession to the room.
“Now, then,” said Horace’s captor, “what’s the row? Let’s hear all about it. Has he been collaring any of your spoons? or setting the house on fire? or what? Who is he?”
“He’s cheeked me!” said Pillans, brushing the dust off his coat. “Hold him fast, will you? till I take it out of him.”
But the horse-racer was far too much of a sportsman for that.
“No, no,” said he, laughing; “make a mill of it and I’m your man. I’ll bet two to one on the young ’un to start with.”
The wine-merchant said he would go double that on Pillans, whereupon the sporting man offered a five-pound note against a half-sovereign on his man, and called out to have the room cleared and a sponge brought in.
How far his scientific enthusiasm would have been rewarded it is hard to say, for Blandford at this juncture most inconsiderately interposed.
“No, no,” said he, “I’m not going to have the place made a cock-pit. Shut up, Pillans, and don’t make an ass of yourself; and you, Cruden, cut off. What did you ever come here for? See what a row you’ve made.”
“It wasn’t I made the row,” said Horace. “I’m awfully sorry, Bland. I’d advise you to cut that friend of yours, I say. He’s an idiot. Good-bye.”
And while the horse-racer and the wine-merchant were still discussing preliminaries, and Mr Pillans was privately ascertaining whether his nose was bleeding, Horace departed in peace, partly amused, partly vexed, and decidedly of opinion that Blandford had taken to keeping very queer company since he last saw him.
The great thing was that Horace could now write and report to Reg that the debt had been paid.
His way home led him past theRocketoffice. It was half-past ten, and the place looked dark and deserted. Even the lights in the editor’s windows were out, and the late hands had gone home. Just at the corner Horace encountered Gedge, one of the late hands in question.
“Hullo, young ’un!” he said. “Going home?”
“Yes, I’m going home,” said young Gedge.
“I heard from my brother yesterday. He was asking after you.”
“Was he?” said the boy half-sarcastically. “He does remember my name, then?”
“Whatever do you mean? Of course he does,” said Horace. “You know that well enough.”
“I shouldn’t have known it unless you’d told me,” said Gedge, with a cloud on his face; “he’s never sent me a word since he left.”
“He’s been awfully busy—he’s scarcely had time to write home. I say, young ’un, what’s the row with you? What makes you so queer?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” said the boy wearily; “I used to fancy somebody cared for me, but I was mistaken. I was going to the dogs fast enough when Cruden came here; I pulled up then, because I thought he’d stand by me; but now he’s gone and forgotten all about me. I’ll—well, there’s nothing to prevent me going to the bad; and I may as well make up my mind to it.”
“No, no,” said Horace, taking his arm kindly; “you mustn’t say that, young ’un. The last words Reg said to me when he went off were, ‘Keep your eye on young Gedge, don’t forget’; the very last words, and he’s reminded me of my promise in every letter since. I’ve been a cad, I know, not to see more of you; but you mustn’t go thinking that you’ve no friends. If it were only for Reg’s sake I’d stick to you. Don’t blame him, though, for I know he thinks a lot about you, and it would break his heart if you went to the bad. Of course you can help going to the bad, old man; we can all help it.”
The boy looked up with the clouds half brushed away from his face.
“I don’t want to go to the bad,” said he; “but I sort of feel I’m bound to go, unless some one sticks up for me. I’m so awfully weak-minded, I’m not fit to be trusted alone.”
“Hullo, I say,” whispered Horace, suddenly stopping short in his walk, “who’s that fellow sneaking about there by the editor’s door?”
“He looks precious like Durfy,” said Gedge; “I believe it is he.”
“What does he want there, I wonder—he wasn’t on the late shift to-night, was he?”
“No; he went at seven.”
“I don’t see what he wants hanging about when everybody’s gone,” said Horace.
“Unless he’s screwed and can’t get home—I’ve known him like that. That fellow’s not screwed, though,” he added; “see, he’s heard some one coming, and he’s off steady enough on his legs.”
“Rum,” said Horace. “It looked like Durfy, too. Never mind, whoever it is, we’ve routed him out this time. Good-night, old man; don’t go down on your luck, mind, and don’t go abusing Reg behind his back, and don’t forget you’re booked to come home to supper with me on Monday, and see my mother. Ta-ta.”