"I did my duty, and it's a mercy you're all rid of him!" said Scarfe, losing temper at being thus browbeaten by a boy of Percy's age.

"Very well, you can go! You're a cad, and you're not wanted here!" said Percy.

"You young prig!" began the visitor; but Percy stopped him.

"Look here," said he, "if you want to fight, say so, and come on! If you don't, go! You're a cad!"

Scarfe was staggered by this outbreak; he never suspected the boy had it in him. He tried to turn the matter off with a laugh.

"Come, don't be a m.u.f.f, Percy! You and I are old friends--"

"We're not; we're enemies!"

"You mean to say," said Scarfe, with a snarl, "you're going to throw me up for the sake of a--"

"Don't say a word about Jeff!" said Percy, white-hot, and springing to his feet; "if you do I'll have you pitched neck and crop into the street! Hook it! No one asked you here, and you're not wanted!"

"I came to see your mother," said Scarfe. "I can't congratulate you, Percy, on your hospitality, but I can hope you'll be better next time I come."

Percy went out after him, and called down the staircase to Walker, "Walker, give Mr Scarfe a gla.s.s of wine and some grub before he goes."

The taunt about hospitality had stung him, and this was how he relieved his conscience on that point.

Scarfe was not the only visitor Percy had. The evening before the travellers were expected home Walker announced that a gentleman had called inquiring for Mr Rimbolt, but hearing he was from home, desired to speak with his son. Percy, ready to clutch at any straw of hope, and jumping at once to the conclusion that the only business on which any one could possibly call at the house was about Jeffreys, told Walker to show the gentleman up.

He was a dark, handsome man, with a few streaks of grey in his hair, and a keen, cold look in his eye which Percy mistrusted.

"We're old friends, I fancy," said he, nodding to the boy as he entered.

"At least, I fancy I saw you sixteen or seventeen years ago."

"I must have been jolly young then," said Percy.

"You were--about a week. Your father and I were college friends. I gave him up as a deserter when he married, and might have cut his acquaintance altogether, only as he happened to marry my sister, I was bound to keep up appearances and come and inspect my nephew when he made his appearance."

"You're my Uncle Halgrove, then? I thought you were dead."

"I sympathise keenly with your disappointment. I am alive and well, and hoped to find my brother-in-law at home."

"They'll be back to-morrow," said Percy.

"Have you dined, my boy?"

"No, not yet."

"That's well; they can lay for two. I'll sleep here to-night."

Percy scrutinised his uncle critically.

"Look here, uncle," he said, rather nervously, "it may be all right, you know, and I'd be awfully sorry not to be civil. But I never saw you before, and didn't know you were alive. So I think you'd better perhaps stay at your hotel to-night and come to-morrow, when they all come home.

Do you mind?"

"Mind?" said Mr Halgrove. "I'm delighted if you are. You prefer solitude, so do I. Or perhaps you've been a naughty boy, and are left behind for your sins."

"I've stayed behind because I didn't want to go," said Percy.

"Well," said Mr Halgrove, "I am sure your relatives are the sufferers by your decision. By the way, one of the things I came to see your father about was to ask him to help me out of a money difficulty. I've just landed from America, and my remittances are not here to meet me.

Consequently I am in the ridiculous position of not being able to pay for the luxury of an hotel. But I understand there are nice clean railway-arches at Victoria, and that crusts are frequently to be met with in the gutters if one keeps his eye open."

Percy was perplexed.

"Do you mean you're really hard up?" said he, "because if you really are, of course you'd better put up here."

"But I may be a fraud, you know. I may rob the house and murder you in your bed," said his uncle, "and that would be a pity."

"I'll take my chance of that," said Percy. And so it happened that the house in Clarges Street had a visitor on the last night of Percy's lonely month. The boy and his uncle began the evening with a great deal of suspicion and mutual aversion. But it wore off as the hours pa.s.sed.

Mr Halgrove had a fund of stories to tell, and the boy was a good listener; and when at last they adjourned to bed they were on friendly terms.

Percy, however, took the precaution to take away the front-door key, so that the visitor could not abscond from the house during the night without his knowledge. The precaution was unnecessary. Mr Halgrove rang his bell for shaving water at ten next morning with the confidence of one who had lived in the house all his life. A few hours later the travellers arrived in London.

CHAPTER TWENTY SIX.

HIDE AND SEEK.

Percy was in considerable difficulty as to the ceremonies to be observed in welcoming his family home. For he had no notion of leaving the house in possession of his suspicious uncle while he went down to the station.

Nor could he bear the idea of not being at the station to meet them.

So he compromised matters by taking his complaisant relative with him, much to that gentleman's amus.e.m.e.nt.

It relieved him considerably, when the train arrived, to see that his mother recognised the stranger, though not effusively, as her veritable brother. He was thus able to devote his whole attention to his other uncle, whom he found considerably more interesting.

Colonel Atherton arrived in high spirits, like a schoolboy home for a holiday. He struck up an alliance with Percy at once, and insisted on taking him off to the apartments near Regent's Park which were to be his and Raby's home for the next few months. As he was saying good-bye to the Rimbolts, he caught sight for the first time of Mr Halgrove.

"Why, bless me, is that you, Halgrove?" he said. "Why, I've worn mourning for you, my boy. This is a bit of sharp practice. Where did you spring from?"

"Perhaps I'm a ghost, after all. So many people have told me lately I'm dead, that I begin to believe it."

"Never fear. If you were a ghost we should be able to see through you-- that's more than anybody ever did with Halgrove, eh, Rimbolt?"

"Halgrove is coming home with us," said Mr Rimbolt, "so when you and Raby come to-morrow we can talk over old times."

"Who would have thought of him turning up?" said the colonel to his daughter as with Percy they drove off in their cab. "Why, I've not heard of him since that affair of poor Jeffreys, and--"

"Jeffreys!" exclaimed Percy, with a suddenness that startled the gallant officer; "did you say Jeffreys?"

"Yes, what about him? It was long before your time--a dozen or fourteen years ago."

"Why, he couldn't have been more than eight then; what happened to him, uncle, I say?"