"'Taint no concern of yourn. Shine 'e boots, sir? 'ere yer are, sir.

Not that bloke, sir. Do yer 'ear? Shine 'e boots, mister?"

This last spirited call was addressed to an elderly gentleman who was pa.s.sing. He yielded eventually to the youth's solicitation, and I therefore resumed my walk to the office with a good deal more to think of than I had when I started.

If I had desired to make a sensation at Hawk Street, I could hardly have done better than turn up that morning as usual. It was a picture to see the fellows' faces of alarm, bewilderment, astonishment, and finally of merriment.

They had all heard that I was laid up with smallpox, which, as my friend Smith was also ill of the same malady, they all considered as natural on my part, and highly proper. They had, in fact, faced the prospect of getting on without me, and were quite prepared to exist accordingly.

The partners, too, had talked the matter over, and come to the decision of advertising again without delay for a new clerk to take my place, and that very morning were intending to draw up the advertis.e.m.e.nt and send it to the papers.

Under these circ.u.mstances I appeared unexpectedly and just as usual on the Hawk Street horizon. No, not just as usual. Had I appeared just as usual, it might have been easier for the company generally to believe that I was really sound, but when my face presented a brilliant combination of most of the colours of the rainbow, the effect was rather sensational.

"Why, if it's not Batchelor," exclaimed Doubleday; not, however, advancing open-armed to meet me, but edging towards the far end of the desk, and dexterously insinuating Crow and Wallop between me and his precious person. "Why, we heard you had smallpox."

"So we thought yesterday," said I, gravely, half aggravated still that I had been defrauded of that distinction.

"Oh, you did, did you?" said Doubleday, gradually working back to his own seat. "Well, you _have_ got something on your face to show for it; hasn't he, Wallop?"

"Looks as if he'd been painting up for the South Sea Islands," observed Wallop.

"That's rather a showy tint of yellow down his left cheek," said Crow.

"Very fashionable colour just now."

"Did you lay it on yourself?" said Doubleday, "or did you get any one to help you?"

"Oh," I said, in as off-hand a manner as I could, "I was having a little box with Whipcord up at the Field-marshal's. You weren't there, by the way, Doubleday. Whipcord's rather a good hand."

"Is he?" said Doubleday, laughing exuberantly, with Wallop and Crow as chorus. "I would never have supposed that by your face, now; would you, you fellows? It strikes me you got a big box instead of smallpox, eh?

Ha, ha!"

"I wonder at Whipcord standing up to you," said Crow. "He's such a quiet fellow, and doesn't know in the least what to do with his hands."

"He had the best of me," I said.

"Well, I don't know. It doesn't do to trust to appearances. If it did one might suppose he had--rather. I hope you'll ask me up when you have the return match."

I didn't see much fun in those witticisms, which, however, appeared to afford great merriment to the company generally, so much so that when Mr Barnacle presently opened the door he caught the whole counting- house laughing.

"What tomfoolery is this?" he demanded, looking angrily round. "You seem to forget, all of you, that you come here to work, and not to play.

If you want to play you can go somewhere else. There!" So saying he pa.s.sed into his private room, slamming the door ill-temperedly behind him.

This was not encouraging for me, who, of course, had to report myself, and contradict the rumours regarding my illness.

I gave him a quartet of an hour or so to quiet down, partly in the hope that Mr Merrett might meanwhile arrive. But as that event did not happen, and as Doubleday informed me that the advertis.e.m.e.nts for a new clerk were to be sent out that morning, I made up my mind there was nothing to be gained by further delay, and therefore made the venture.

I found myself anything but comfortable as I stood before Mr Barnacle's desk, and stammeringly began my statement.

"Please, sir--"

"Why, what is this, sir?" demanded Mr Barnacle, sternly. "We were told yesterday you were ill."

"So I was, sir, and I believed I was going to have smallpox, but the doctor says I'm not."

"And does that account for your face being in that state, pray?"

"No, sir, I got that boxing--that is fighting."

"Most discreditable conduct! Is that all you have to say?"

"Yes, sir. I'm sorry I was away yesterday."

"Well, now, listen to what I have to say," said Mr Barnacle, laying down his pen, and leaning forward in his chair. "You've not been doing well lately, Batchelor. I've watched you and I've watched your work, and I don't like it. I was mistaken in you, sir. You're idle, sir, and unless you improve I sha'n't keep you another week, mind that."

"Indeed, sir--" I began.

"Hold your tongue, sir," said Mr Barnacle. "We've no room in this office for boys of your kind, and unless you change you must go somewhere else. You've played the fool quite enough here."

I would fain have replied to justify myself, but in the junior partner's present temper the attempt would have been hazardous.

So I said nothing and returned to my work, determined for my own credit, as well as in my own interest, to show Mr Barnacle that he had judged me harshly.

How I worked that week! I refused invitation after invitation, and stayed late after every one else had gone to get ahead with my work.

During office hours I steadily abstracted myself from what was going on all round, and determined that nothing should draw me from my tasks. I even volunteered for and undertook work not strictly my own, greatly to the amazement of everybody, especially Wallop, who began to think there really must be something in the rumour that I was not well. And all the while I most a.s.siduously doctored my face, which gradually came to resume its normal complexion.

I could see that this burst of industry was having its due effect in high quarters. Mr Barnacle, who after his lecture had treated me gruffly and abruptly for some days, began again to treat me civilly, and Mr Merrett bestowed once or twice a special commendation on my industry.

In due time, so far from feeling myself a repentant idler, I had grown to consider myself one of the most virtuous, industrious, and well- principled clerks in London, and in proportion as this conviction got hold of me my application to work relaxed. One event especially completed my self-satisfaction. About three weeks after my interview with Mr Barnacle I was summoned into the partners' room, and there informed that, having now been eight months in their service, and proving myself useful in my situation, my salary would henceforth be twelve shillings a week!

I could hardly believe my ears! Why, it was just half as much again as what I had been receiving. On eight shillings a week I had lived economically, but not so badly. And now, what might I not do with twelve shillings a week?

Doubleday insisted on my coming up to his lodgings that evening to celebrate the joyful event with a quiet supper. This invitation I accepted, the first for nearly a month, and in view of the occasion spent my first extra four shillings in antic.i.p.ation on a coloured Oxford-shirt, which I grandly requested, with the air of a moneyed man, to be put down to my account. I found myself quite the hero of the party that evening. Every one was there. I had an affecting reconciliation with Whipcord, and forgot all about Flanagan's desertion and Daly's indifference in my hour of tribulation; I discoursed condescendingly with the Field-Marshal about his hopeless attachment, and promised to go for a row up the river one Sat.u.r.day with the twins.

And all the time of supper I was mentally calculating the cost of Doubleday's entertainment, and wondering whether I could venture to give a party myself!

In fact, I was so much taken up with my own good fortune and my new rise in life, that I could think of nothing else. I forgot my former warnings and humiliations. I forgot that even with twelve shillings a week I had barely enough to clothe me respectably; I forgot that every one of these fellows was in the habit of laughing at me behind my back, and I forgot all my good resolutions to live steadily till Jack came back.

And I forgot all about poor Jack--(now, so the letters had told me), convalescent and slowly recovering health, but still lying lonely and weary in the Packworth Hospital. Indeed, that evening his name only twice crossed my mind--once when Doubleday and Crow were laughing over the prospect of "Bull's-eye" turning up with a face deeply marked with his late disease; and once when, walking back to Beadle Square, full of my new plans of extravagance, I chanced to pa.s.s a small boy, curled up on a doorstep, with his head resting on a s...o...b..ack box, and the light of a neighbouring lamp shining full on his sleeping face. Then I remembered how, not very long ago, I had seen that same head lying side by side with Jack's head on the pillow at Mrs Nash's. And as I stood for a moment to look, I could almost have believed that the sleeping figure there, with all his vulgarity and dishonesty, had as good a t.i.tle to call himself Jack Smith's friend as I had.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

HOW I GAVE A LITTLE SUPPER TO SOME OF MY FRIENDS.

The idea of giving a party of my own to my new friends, in return for their hospitality to me, was not by any means a new one. It had been simmering in my mind for some weeks past. Indeed, ever since I began to be invited out, the thought that I could not return the compliment had always been a drawback to my pleasure.

But there had always been two obstacles in the way of carrying out my wish. The first was lack of funds, the second was Mrs Nash. On eight shillings a week I had come to the conclusion it was out of the question to dream of giving a party to eight persons. By the most modest calculation I couldn't possibly do the thing decently under a shilling a head. It was true I had my uncle's half-sovereign in my pocket still.

I might, I reflected, borrow that, and pay it back by weekly instalments. But somehow I didn't like the idea quite, and never brought myself to the point of carrying it into effect. Now, however, with the sudden rise in my fortunes recorded in the last chapter, the financial obstacle to my hospitality was quite swept away. I had only to take the extra four shillings a week for two weeks--and the thing was done!

So the idea no longer simmered in my mind--it boiled; and I was determined for once in a way to astonish my friends.