The next few days I was on thorns. I dreaded to be alone with Jack, and still more dreaded to be by when the fellows were--now an ordinary pastime--chaffing him at the office. It was like living on a volcano which might at any moment explode. However, the days went on, and my fears did not come to pa.s.s. The fellows had either forgotten all about it, or, more likely, their sense of honour prevented them from making it known. I was devoutly thankful, of course, and by every means in my power endeavoured to show it. I made myself as agreeable as possible to my comrades, and bore all their chaff and persecution with the utmost good-humour, and went out of my way to secure and retain their good graces.

Of course I could not do this without in a way defying Jack's influence.

Though he had never once taken me to task in so many words, I knew well enough he considered I was wasting my time and money in this perpetual round of festivities. But I had to take the risk of that. After all, I was playing to shield him. If he only knew all, he would be grateful to me, I reflected, rather than offended.

He could not help noticing my altered manner, and of course put it down to anything but its true cause. He thought I was offended with him for not encouraging my extravagances, and that the great intimacy with Doubleday and Hawkesbury and Crow was meant to show him that I was independent of him.

However, he made one brave effort to pull me up.

"Fred," said he, thoughtfully, one evening, as we walked home--"Fred, what are you going to do about your debts?"

"Oh, pay them some day, I suppose," I said, shortly.

"When will that be?" he continued, quietly, not noticing my manner.

"I really can't say," I replied, not liking to be thus questioned.

"Do you know how much you owe?" he asked.

"Really, Jack, you take a great interest in my debts!"

"I do," he replied, solemnly, and with the air of a fellow who had made up his mind to go through with an unpleasant duty.

"Well," I said, warming up rather, "I fancy I can look after them quite as well by myself."

"I'm afraid I am offending you," said Jack, looking straight at me, "but I don't think you do look after them properly."

"What do you mean?" I demanded.

"I mean," said Jack, with his arm still in mine, "that you are head over ears in debt, and that, instead of paying off, you are spending your money in other ways. And I don't think it's right, Fred."

"Upon my word, Jack," I said, "it's quite new for you to lecture me like this, and I don't like it. What business is it of yours, I should like to know?"

"You are my friend," he said, quietly.

I drew my arm roughly from his.

"If you are mine," said I, "when I want your advice I'll ask it."

He looked at me a moment doubtfully with his big eyes. Then he said, "I was afraid of this; we never quarrelled before, Fred."

"And we shouldn't quarrel now," I cried, "if you'd mind your own business."

"It is my business," he persisted--doggedly, as I thought.

"What's your business?" I demanded, with rising rage.

"To beg you not to be a fool," he replied, steadily.

My temper had already gone. My self-control now deserted me as I stopped abruptly, and turned to him.

"Your business!" I exclaimed, bitterly.

"Yes, Fred, my business," he said, quietly, with a touch of sadness in his tone.

"Then let me tell you," I exclaimed, forgetting everything but my resentment, "I don't intend to be told my duty _by you of all people_!"

It was enough. He knew the meaning of those cowardly words. His face turned suddenly pale, and his eyes dropped, as with a half-groan he started to walk slowly on.

I would have given worlds to recall the words--worlds to be able to seize his arm and beg his forgiveness. But my wicked vanity kept me back, and I let him go on alone. Then I followed. It was the first of many, many sad, solitary walks for me.

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE.

HOW A DOOR CLOSED BETWEEN MY FRIEND SMITH AND ME.

If any one had told me a month before that I should quarrel with my friend Smith, I should have laughed at the bare idea. But now the impossible thing had happened.

That night as I lay awake in my bed I felt that I had not a friend in the world. I had wounded, in the cruellest way, the only true friend I ever had, and now I was to suffer for it. The words had come hastily and thoughtlessly, but they had come; and Jack, I knew, regarded me as a coward and a brute.

The next day we scarcely spoke a word to one another, and when we did it was in so constrained a manner that it would have been more comfortable had we remained silent. We walked to and from the office by separate ways, and during the mid-day half-hour we lunched for the first time at different eating-houses.

I longed to explain--to beg his pardon. But he was so stiff and distant in his manner that I could not venture to approach him. Once I did try, but he saw me coming and, I fancied, turned on his heel before I got up.

What was I to do? If this was to last, I should be miserable for ever.

Yet how could it end? Would I write him a letter, or would I get some one to plead my cause for me? Or would I let him see how wretched I was, and work on his feelings that way? It was all my fault, I knew.

Yet he might have come out a little and made a reconciliation easy.

Surely if he had really been my friend, thought I, he would not be so quick to cast me off, and judge me by one or two hasty words!

What between an evil conscience, vexation, and disappointment, I was that day about the most miserable fellow alive. The fellows at the office all noticed and added to my discomfort by ostentatiously condoling with me.

"Poor old chap!" said Doubleday; "he's been letting you have it, has he?

Awful shame."

"As if a fellow mayn't get screwed without his interfering," laughed Crow.

"It's nothing of the sort," said I, as usual taking in earnest what was meant as a jest; "I was never screwed."

Crow's only answer was a whistle, which greatly amused all the others.

"Never mind," said Doubleday, "come along with us to-night, old man; we've got a little spree on, haven't we, Crow? We're going to get tea and shrimps at the Magpie, and then going in a body to the Serio-Comics, and finish up with a supper somewhere or other. Going to make a regular night of it. Come along."

"I don't want to," I said; "besides, I can't afford it."

"Afford your great-grandmother! Why, a fellow who can entertain the whole lot of us as you did can't be so very hard up, can he, Wallop? So come, none of your gammon. You're coming with us to-night, my boy, and old Bull's-eye can sit and scowl at himself in the looking-gla.s.s if he likes."

I went with them, glad enough to get anywhere out of Jack's sight. We had a "rollicking evening," as the fellows called it; which meant that after a noisy and extravagant tea at the Magpie we adjourned in a body to the performance, where we made quite as much noise as the rest of the audience put together, after which we finished up with a fish supper of Doubleday's ordering, at a restaurant, the bill for which came to two shillings a head.