"With pleasure,--that is if I can," answered Jack, cautiously, wondering what she wanted, and with a dread that it might be in the nature of religious services.

"I got to go out to see the doctor, and I'd take it friendly would you sit wid th' boy, till I get back. I'll not be long."

"Why, yes, of course," said Rattleton, feeling how much worse it might have been.

The woman took down her shawl, and throwing it over her head, drew out the bottle she had just hidden, and tucked it under her arm out of sight. "I'll ask the doctor whether this is good for the kid," she muttered. "If Jamsey don't need it, I can sell it. I know some one else it ain't good for."

Opening the door she first looked out cautiously, then hurried down-stairs.

"Wonder what I ought to do now?" thought Rattleton. Blathers was over at the bed making friends with the patient.

"Dis your dog? nice one, ain't he. Is you one o' de student fellers?"

Jack admitted that he was, knowing that the word "student" was used in its generic, not its strict sense.

"You're a friend o' Mr. Varnum's, eh? He's nice, ain't he?"

Rattleton agreed emphatically that Varnum _was_ "nice."

"Yare," continued the boy, "he's a daisy. He comes in and reads to me all de time. Mr. Talcot, he comes too sometimes; but he ain't as nice as Mr. Varnum. Hullo, you been to de game?"

This last question was elicited by the sight of the little bit of crimson ribbon stuck through Rattleton's b.u.t.tonhole,--an _insignium_ brought from the seat of war. In cheerful compliance with the demand to hear all about it, Jack sat down by the bed, and recounted, as well as he could, all the details of the afternoon's battle. He described Jarvis' splendid run, and how he had scored and at the same time broken his collar-bone in his great plunge for Harvard and glory. As he told of it he thought of Varnum lying alone in the hospital.

"Would you like me to read to you?" suggested Jack, when the foot-ball subject had been exhausted.

"You bet," a.s.sented the patient. "I ain't heard no readin' all day.

Mudder can't read; and Sis ain't been here."

"Here's a book I brought," said Rattleton, picking up the bright-pictured nursery rhymes. "I don't know whether it's interesting,"

he added, doubtfully.

For a little while he read the cla.s.sics of _Mother Goose_ in his gentle drawl, until the boy interrupted him.

"Say, what sort o' baby's stuff is dat, anyhow? I don't t'ink much o'

dat. I'd sooner hear _Dare-Devil d.i.c.k_ dan dat."

"I am inclined to agree with you," replied Rattleton. "Really, you see, I hadn't read this for so long that I had forgotten just what it was like. Let's have _Dare-Devil d.i.c.k_."

"I ain't got it now. I give it away. Mr. Varnum, he gi' me a book he said was better, and I guess it is. It's got an A-1 sc.r.a.pper in it, too, dat could do Dare-Devil d.i.c.k wid one hand. He didn't kill so many people, but I t'ink he was a better feller. 'Dere it is at de foot o' de bed."

Rattleton took up the book indicated. It was _Westward Ho!_ He sat down again by the bed, and opened the book at a place where there was a mark.

Then the two went out from the little squalid room, and sailed away over the Spanish Main with tall Amyas Leigh and his good men of Devon. For over half an hour the little invalid street-arab and the hare-brained Harvardian were both wrapped in the spell of the apostle to the Anglo-Saxon youths.

Before Rattleton had finished reading he heard the door open and close, and a rustle of skirts. Looking up he saw, not the old woman, but a rather gaudily-dressed young one. Jack thought he had seen her face before somewhere. That was quite possible, I regret to say.

"Hullo, Sis," said the boy. "Me sister," he explained to Rattleton. The young woman looked with surprise at the latter, as he rose to his feet.

Her eye glanced at his stick and his bull terrier, and all over his clothes, from his shoes up; then narrowly scrutinized the face of the thoroughly uncomfortable youth. Though the shyest of men, this was the first time he had ever felt very bashful in such a presence. Then she asked, disdainfully, "What's one o' your kind doing here?"

Jack colored to his hair. "I--I don't know exactly, myself," he stammered. "You see I came to take the place of my friend who is ill,"

he explained, apologetically.

"I know you now," said the girl, her look softening a little. "You're the sport that done up Dutch Jake for kickin' a kid one night in Stuber's restaurant."

"I _have_ been in there occasionally," Jack confessed. He was going to add "I am sorry to say," but remembered that might be rude. "I promised Mrs.--er--Mrs. Haggerty, to sit here until she returned," he continued, "but I suppose I am not needed now?"

"No, much obliged to you, I'll stay with Jimmy till she gets back."

Jack took up his hat and stick, but paused a moment awkwardly as he turned to leave.

"Would you--er--would you mind," he said, hesitatingly, "my--er--my--er--my _lending_ a little money--for the boy, you know?"

The girl laughed bitterly. "I guess we can stand it," she said. "If you never spent your money worse than that, I'm mistaken. You can give us the tin. We ain't proud."

"Thanks," murmured Jack, vaguely feeling that he was being helped out of an awkward attempt. He pulled out the contents of his pocket, both bills and change. "I dare say you _will_ spend it better than I."

Just as he was handing the money to the girl, there was a knock on the door, and in answer to her heedless "come in" a man entered. It was a cla.s.smate, named Talcot, whom Jack knew only by sight as one of Varnum's "Y. M. C. A. pals." He stopped in astonishment, and then frowned, as he recognized Rattleton, and saw him giving the money.

"Mr. Rattleton, I believe?"

Jack looked him in the eye, and nodded stiffly.

"Don't you think, sir," asked the worthy student, with an indignant sneer, "that you had better confine yourself to your expensive clubs, and to your regular haunts in town?"

Jack colored again, the shade of his little ribbon; but this time it was not a blush. He bit his lip for a moment, and gripped his stick hard.

"I am afraid I had," he said very slowly, as he moved towards the door.

"But I will tell you one thing, Mr. Talcot," he added as he paused in the doorway. "I am an awful fool, I know, but I am not mean enough to think that every d.a.m.n fool must be a d.a.m.n rascal. I will give you an opportunity later to apologize. Good-night, Jimmy. Come along, Blathers," and he strode down-stairs.

"Pheugh," puffed Rattleton, as he got out in the grateful fresh air again. "I got it in the neck twice in that round. Guess I'd better keep out of that kind of a ring hereafter."

He went back to the hospital, and found that Varnum was asleep, and resting comfortably. "Now, by Jove, Blathers, we'll have dinner!" he exclaimed, joyfully, as he left the hospital. "I'm nearly dead," he thought, "we'll go to the Victoria and have a bang-up din, and a bot--No we won't, either," he suddenly concluded, as he thrust his hands into his pockets, "we'll go to Billy Parks." He had a bill at Park's. There was also a fair prospect of his walking out to Cambridge that night, unless he met a friend; for he had forgotten to keep even a car-fare.

Holworthy always declared that Rattleton would forget his head some day, and Jack now expressed a fear of that nature himself, when he discovered the void in his pockets.

Annoyance never chummed long with Jack Rattleton, however, and it had left him by the time he got to Park's restaurant. He looked over the bill-of-fare with the delight of antic.i.p.ation and expended a good deal of careful thought in his selection.

"Let's see, shall I fool with Little Neck clams? Yes, I can have those while they are cooking the rest. Mock turtle soup, and then filets of sole; they are mock, too, but they are very good. Then bring me some of that chicken pasty. Yes, you can call it _vol-au-vent_ if you like, but don't stick me extra for the name; I would just as lief eat it in English. Then I want half a black duck. Tell the cook it is for me, and I don't want coot. After that I'll decide as to the next course. Bring me a half bottle of Mumm, and a long gla.s.s with chopped ice in it, and bring that right away. Oh! by the way," he called, as the waiter was starting off with the order, "find out at the desk how the game came out. Gad, I'd nearly forgotten it!"

"Why, sir," replied the waiter, "haven't you heard? Too bad. Six to four. Yale made a touch-down in the last five minutes, and kicked a goal from it."

"Wha-at!" exclaimed Jack. "Hi! waiter! Hold on a minute; come back here!

Make that order one English chop and a mug of musty."

THE WAKING NIGHTMARE OF HOLLIS HOLWORTHY.