"No, he's not," said I, ready to take up the gauntlet for my friend; "and you'd better not say it again!"

"Oh, I say! Look here," said Doubleday, "don't _you_ begin at that game, young shaver! We're used to it from your chum bull's-eye, but I'm not going to let you start at it. Besides, Crow wouldn't like it. Get on with your work, do you hear?"

Jack reappeared in a minute with a grateful face, which showed at once that his application had been successful.

"Good-bye," said he, coming to my desk; "I'll send you a line;" and without another word to any one he was gone.

"He's a cool fish, that friend of yours!" said Doubleday, that afternoon to me. "He seems to get on pretty much as he likes."

"He's awfully cut up about his sister," I said. "Poor Jack!"

"No harm in that!" said Doubleday, condescendingly. "I thought he was quite right to walk into that cad Wallop myself. But he'll find it rather hot for him when he gets back, I fancy. When's he coming back?"

"In a day or two, I suppose," said I.

"And you'll be mighty disconsolate, I suppose," said Doubleday, "till he returns? What do you say to coming up to my lodgings to-night, eh, young 'un, to see me?"

I felt very grateful for this unlooked-for honour, and said I would be delighted to come.

"All serene! I've asked one or two of the fellows up, so we'll have a jolly evening. By the way, when you go out get me a couple of boxes of sardines, will you, and a dozen twopenny cigars?"

I executed these commissions, and in due time, business being ended, Doubleday and I and Crow, and the sardines and the cigars, started in a body for Cork Place, where, in a first-floor front, the estimable Mr Doubleday was wont to pitch his daily tent.

They were cosy quarters, and contrasted in a marked manner with Beadle Square. Doubleday knew how to make himself comfortable, evidently.

There were one or two good prints on his walls, a cheerful fire in the hearth, a sofa and an easy-chair, and quite an array of pickle-jars and beer-bottles and jam-pots in his cupboard. And, to my thinking, who had been used to the plain, unappetising fare of Mrs Nash, the spread on his table was simply sumptuous.

I felt quite shy at being introduced to such an entertainment, and inwardly wondered how long it would be before I, with my eight shillings a week, would be able to afford the like.

We were a little early, and Doubleday therefore pressed us into the service to help him, as he called it, "get all snug and ship-shape,"

which meant boiling some eggs, emptying the jam-pots into gla.s.s dishes, and cutting up a perfect stack of bread.

"Who's coming to-night?" said Crow, with whom, by the way, I had become speedily reconciled in our mutual occupation.

"Oh, the usual lot," said Doubleday, with the air of a man who gives "feeds" every day of his life. "The two Wickhams, and Joe Whipcord, and the Field-Marshal, and an Irish fellow who is lodging with him. We ought to have a jolly evening."

In due time the guests arrived, Mr Joseph Whipcord being the earliest.

He was a freckled youth of a most horsey get up, in clothes so tight that it seemed a marvel how he could ever sit down, and a straw in his mouth which appeared to grow there. Close on his heels came the two Wickhams, whose chief attractiveness seemed to be that they were twins, and as like as two peas.

"Hullo! here you are," was Doubleday's greeting. "Which is which of you to-night, eh?"

"I'm Adam," replied one of the two, meekly.

"All serene, Adam. Stick this piece of paper in your b.u.t.ton-hole, and then we'll know you from Abel. By the way, Whipcord, I suppose you never heard my last joke, did you?"

"Never heard your first yet," replied Whipcord, shifting his straw to the other corner of his mouth.

"Oh, yes you did," retorted Doubleday, who as usual always preferred the laugh when it was on his own side. "Don't you remember me telling Crow last time you came that you were a fellow who knew a thing or two? That was a joke, eh, twins?"

"Rather," said both the twins, warmly.

"But my last wasn't about Whipcord at all: it was about you two. I got muddled up among you somehow and said, `For the life of me I am not able to tell one of you from Adam!'"

"Well?" said Whipcord.

"Well, what!" said Doubleday, savagely "The joke?"

"Why, that _was_ the joke, you blockhead! But we can't expect a poor fellow like you to see it. I say, the Field-Marshal's behind time.

I'll give him two minutes, and then we'll start without him."

Just then there was a knock at the door, and two fellows entered. One was a tall, thin, cadaverous-looking boy a little my senior, and the other--his exact contrast, a thick-set, burly youth, with a merry twinkle in his eye and a chronic grin on his lips.

"Late again, Field-Marshal," said Doubleday, clapping the cadaverous one on the back with a blow that nearly doubled him up. "Is this your chum?

How are you, Patrick?"

The youth addressed as Patrick, but whose real name subsequently was announced as Daly, said he was "rightly," and that it was his fault the Field-Marshal was late, as he had to shave.

This announcement caused great amus.e.m.e.nt, for Master Daly was as innocent of a hair on his face as he was of being tattooed, and by the manner in which he joined in the laughter he seemed to be quite aware of the fact.

We sat down to supper in great good spirits. I was perhaps the least cheerful, for all the others being friends, and I knowing only my two fellow-clerks, I felt rather out of it. However, Doubleday, who seemed to have an eye for everybody, soon put me at my ease with myself and the rest.

What a meal it was! I hadn't tasted such a one since I came to London.

Eggs and sardines, lobster and potted meat; coffee and tea, toast, cake, bread-and-b.u.t.ter--it was positively bewildering. And the laughing, and talking, and chaffing that went on, too. Doubleday perfectly astonished me by his talents as a host. He never ceased talking, and yet everybody else talked too; he never ceased partaking, and took care that no one else should either. He seemed to know by the outside of a cup whether it was full or empty, and to be able to see through loaves and dish- covers into everybody's plate. It would be impossible to say what was not talked about during that wonderful meal. The private affairs of Hawk Street were freely canva.s.sed, and the private affairs of every one of the company were discussed with the most charming frankness. I found myself giving an account of my uncle to the Field-marshal, which confidence he reciprocated by telling me that he was a private in the volunteers (that was why the fellows called him Field-Marshal), and an accountant's clerk, that his income was fifty pounds a year, that he had saved seven pounds, that he was engaged to a most charming person named Felicia, whom at the present rate of his progress he hoped to marry in about twenty years. Whipcord was discoursing on the points of every racehorse in the calendar to the twins, who had evidently never seen a racehorse; and Daly was telling stories which half choked Crow, and kept us all in fits of laughter. It was a new life to me, this, and no mistake.

"Now then, young Batchelor, walk into those sardines, do you hear?" said our host. "Any more coffee, twins? Pa.s.s up those tea-cakes when you've helped yourself, Crow. I got them for twopence apiece--not bad, eh? I say, I suppose you've heard what's up in Hawk Street, eh?--jam to the Field-Marshal there. Yes, Harris of the Imports told me: he heard it from Morgan, who knows a fellow who knows old Merrett. Plenty more potted meat in the cupboard; get out some, Batchelor, that's a good fellow. The fact is--sugar enough in yours, Paddy?--the fact is, the old boy is going to put in a nephew--pa.s.s up your cup, Adam, Abel, what's your name, you with the paper in your b.u.t.ton-hole?--what was your mother about when she gave you such idiotic names, both of you? I'd like to give her a piece of my mind!--a nephew or something of the sort--that'll be the third kid in the last half-year landed in on us-- don't you call that lobster a good one for eighteen pence, Paddy, my boy? Never mind, I'll let them know I'm not going to train up all their young a.s.ses for nothing--hullo! Batchelor, beg pardon, old man; I forgot you were one of them!"

This occasioned a laugh, which made me look very self-conscious; which Doubleday saw, and tried to help me out.

"If they were all like you," he said, with a patronising smile, "it wouldn't hurt; but that bull's-eye chum of yours is a drop too much for an office like ours. Do you know, I believe it's a fact he's been in gaol, or something of the sort--try a little vinegar with it, Field- Marshal--capital thing for keeping down the fat. Never saw such a temper, upon my word, did you, Crow? Why, he was nearly going to eat _you_ up this very morning. And the best of it is, he thinks he's the only fellow in the office who does a stroke of work. Never mind, he's safe at home for a bit; but, my eye! won't he be astonished to find Merrett, Barnacle, and Company can get on without him!"

I was beginning to feel very uncomfortable. It was rank treason to sit by and listen to all this without putting in a word for my friend; and yet in this company I could not for the life of me make the venture.

Indeed, to my shame be it said, with the eyes of my companions upon me, and their laughter in my ears, I even faintly joined in the smile at poor Jack's expense.

"Is this pleasant chap a friend of yours?" said the Field-Marshal.

"Yes," said I, rather hesitatingly, "we were at school together, you know."

I despised myself heart and soul for my cowardice, and for me the rest of the meal pa.s.sed with little enjoyment.

And when the cloth was cleared away fresh difficulties presented themselves.

"Are you a good hand at whist?" asked Adam, as we stood in front of the fire.

"No," said I; "I don't play."

"Don't you? We'll give you a lesson, then."

Now my bringing-up had been peculiar, as the reader knows. In many ways it had been strict, and in many ways lax; but one of the scruples I had always carried about with me was on the subject of gambling.