"It is horrid having to go, mother," said the boy; "but we must make the best of it. If you look so unhappy, I shall be sorry I ever thought of it."

His mother tried to smile, and said,--

"Yes, we must try and make the best of it, dear boys; and if we cannot seem as glad as we should like to be, it's not to be wondered at at first, is it?"

"I hope you'll get holidays enough now and then to run up," said Horace.

"Oh yes; I don't fancy there'll be much difficulty about that," replied Reg. "In fact, it's possible I may have to come up now and then on business."

There was a silence for a few seconds, and then he added rather nervously,--

"By the way, mother, about the 50. I had intended to ask Mr Richmond to advance it, although I should have hated to do so. But now, I was wondering--do you think there would be any objection to taking it out of our money, and letting it be invested in my name in the Corporation? It really wouldn't make any difference, for you'd get exactly the same interest for it as you got through Mr Richmond; and, of course, the princ.i.p.al would belong to you too."

"I see no objection," said Mrs Cruden. "It's our common stock, and if we can use it for the common good, so much the better."

"Thanks," said Reginald. "If you wouldn't mind sending a line to Mr Richmond's clerk to-morrow, he could let me have the cheque to take down or Monday with me."

The three days that followed were dismal ones for the three Crudens.

There are few miseries like that of an impending separation. We wish the fatal moment to arrive and end our suspense. We know of a thousand things we want to say, but the time slips by wasted, and hangs drearily on our hands. We have not the spirit to look forward, or the heart to look back. We long to have it all over, and yet every stroke of the clock falls like a cruel knell on our ears. We long that we could fall asleep, and wake to find ourselves on the other side of the crisis we dread.

So it was with the Crudens; and when at last the little trio stood on the Monday on the platform of Euston Station, all three felt that they would give anything to have the last few days back again.

"I'll write, mother, as often as ever I can," said Reginald, trying to speak as if the words did not stick in his throat.

"Tell us all about your quarters, and what you have to do, and all that," said Horace.

Mrs Cruden had no words. She stood with her eyes fixed on her boy, and felt she needed all her courage to do that steadily.

"Horrors," said Reg, as the guard locked the carriage door, and the usual silence which precedes the blowing of the whistle ensued, "keep your eye on young Gedge, will you? there's a good fellow."

"I will, and I'll--"

But here the whistle sounded, and amid the farewells that followed, Reginald went out into his new world, leaving them behind, straining their eyes for a last look, but little dreaming how and when that little family should meet again.

CHAPTER TWELVE.

HORACE LEARNS AN ART, PAYS A BILL, AND LENDS A HELPING HAND.

"I say, Cruden," said Waterford to Horace one morning, shortly after Reginald's departure from London, "I shall get jealous if you don't pull up."

"Jealous of me?" said Horace. "Whatever for?"

"Why, before you came I flattered myself I was a bit of a dab at the scissors-and-paste business, but you've gone and cut me out completely."

"What rot!" said Horace, laughing. "There's more than enough cutting out to do with the morning papers to leave any time for operating on you. Besides, any duffer can do work like that."

"That's all very well," said Waterford. "There's only one duffer here that can do as much as me and Booms put together, and that's you. Now, if you weren't such a racehorse, I'd propose to you to join our shorthand cla.s.s. You'll have to learn it some time or other, you know."

"The very thing I'd like," said Horace. "That is," he added, "if it won't take up all a fellow's evenings. How often are the cla.s.ses?"

"Well, as often as we like. Generally once a week. Booms's washerwoman--"

"Whatever has she to do with shorthand?" asked Horace.

"More than you think, my boy. She always takes eight days to wash his collars and cuffs. He sends them to her on Wednesdays, and gets them back on the next day week, so that we always practise shorthand on the Wednesday evening. Don't we, Booms?" he inquired, as the proud owner of that name entered the office at that moment.

"There you are," sighed he. "How do I know what you are talking about?"

"I was saying we always worked up our shorthand on Wednesday evenings."

"If you say so," said the melancholy one, "it must be so."

"I was telling Cruden he might join us this winter."

"Very well," said the other, resignedly; "but where are you going to meet? Mrs Megson has gone away, and we've no reader."

"Bother you, Booms, for always spotting difficulties in a thing. You see," added he, to Horace, "we used to meet at a good lady's house who kept a day school. She let us go there one evening a week, and read aloud to us, for us to take it down in shorthand. She's gone now, bad luck to her, and the worst of it is we're bound to get a lady to take us in, as we've got ladies in our cla.s.s, you see."

At the mention of ladies Booms groaned deeply.

"Why, I tell you what," said Horace, struck by a brilliant idea. "What should you say to my mother? I think she would be delighted; and if you want a good reader aloud, she's the very woman for you."

Waterford clapped his friend enthusiastically on the back.

"You're a trump, Cruden, to lend us your mother; isn't he, Booms?"

"Oh yes," said Booms. "I've seen her, and--" here he appeared to undergo a mental struggle--"I like her."

"At any rate, I'll sound her on the matter. By the way, she'll want to know who the ladies are."

"It'll only be one this winter, I'm afraid," said Waterford, "as the Megsons have gone. It's a Miss Crisp, Cruden, a friend of Booms's, who--"

"Whom I met the other night at the Shucklefords'?" said Horace.

Booms answered the question with such an agonised sigh that both his companions burst out laughing.

"Dear old Booms can tell you more about her than I can," said Waterford.

"All I know is she's a very nice girl indeed."

"I agree with you," said Horace; "I'm sure she is. You think so too, don't you, Booms?"

"You don't know what I think," said Booms; which was very true.

One difficulty still remained, and this appeared to trouble Horace considerably.

He did not like to refer to it as long as the melancholy masher was present, but as soon as he had gone in to fetch the papers, Horace inquired of his friend,--