CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

LOST AND FOUND.

Booms was not exactly the sort of man to be elated by the mission which Miss Shuckleford had thrust upon him. He pa.s.sed a restless night in turning the matter over in his mind and wondering how he could break the news gently to his friend.

For he was fond of Horace, and in his saturnine way felt deeply for him in his trouble. And on this account he wished Jemima had chosen any other confidant to discharge the unpleasant task.

He hung about outside Mrs Cruden's house for an hour early that morning, in the hope of being able to entrap Miss Crisp and get her to take the duty off his hands. But Miss Crisp had been sitting up all night with the patient and did not appear.

He knocked at the door and asked the servant-girl how Mrs Cruden was.

She was a little better, but very weak and not able to speak to anybody.

"Any news from Liverpool?" inquired Booms. This had become a daily question among those who inquired at Number 6, Dull Street.

"No, no news," said the girl, with a guilty blush. She knew the reason why. Reginald's last letter, written just before his arrest, was at that moment in her pocket.

"Has Mr Horace started to the office?"

"No; he's a-going to wait and see the doctor, and he says I was to ask you to tell the gentleman so."

"Can I see him?"

"No; he's asleep just now," said the girl.

So Booms had to go down alone to the _Rocket_, as far as ever from getting the burden of Jemima's secret off his mind.

He had a good mind to pa.s.s it on to Waterford, and might have done so, had not that young gentleman been engaged all the morning on special duty, which kept him in Mr Granville's room.

Booms grew more and more dispirited and nervous. Every footstep that came to the door made him tremble, for fear it should be the signal for the unhappy disclosure. He tried hard to persuade himself it would be kinder after all to say nothing about it. What good could it do now?

Booms, as the reader knows, had not a very large mind. But what there was of it was honest, and it told him, try how he would, there was no getting out of a promise. So he busied himself with concocting imaginary phrases and letters, by way of experiment as to the neatest way of breaking his bad news.

Still he dreaded his friend's arrival more and more; and when at last a brisk footstep halted at the door, he started and turned pale like a guilty thing, and wished Jemima at the bottom of the sea!

But the footstep was not Horace's. Whoever the arrival was, he tapped at the door before entering, and then, without waiting for a reply, walked in.

It was a youth of about seventeen or eighteen, with a bright honest face and cheery smile.

"Is Horace Cruden here?" he inquired eagerly.

"Oh no," said Booms, in his most doleful accents.

"Isn't this where he works?"

"It is indeed."

"Well, then, is anything wrong? Is he ill?"

"No. _He_ is not ill," said Booms, emphasising the p.r.o.noun.

"Is Reginald ill, then, or their mother?"

A ray of hope crossed Booms's mind. This stranger was evidently a friend of the family. He called the boys by their Christian names, and knew their mother. Would he take charge of the dismal secret?

"His mother is ill," said he. "Do you know them?"

"Rather. I was Horace's chum at Wilderham, you know, and used to spend my holidays regularly at Garden Vale. Is she very ill?"

"Very," said Booms; "and the worst of it is, Reginald is not at home."

"Where is he. Horrors told me he had gone to the country."

Booms _would_ tell him. For the visitor called his friend Horrors, a pet name none but his own family were ever known to use.

"They don't know where he is. But I do," said Booms, with a tragic gesture.

"Where? where? What's wrong, I say? Tell me, there's a good fellow."

"He's in prison," said Booms, throwing himself back in his chair, and panting with the effort the disclosure had cost him.

"In prison! and Horace doesn't know it! What _do_ you mean? Tell me all you know."

Booms did tell him, and very little it was. All he knew was from Jemima's secondhand report, and the magnitude of the news had quite prevented him from inquiring as to particulars.

"When did you hear this?" said Harker; for the reader will have guessed by this time that the visitor was no other than Horace's old Wilderham ally.

"Yesterday."

"And he doesn't know yet?"

"How could I tell him? Of course I'm to get all the blame. I expected it."

"Who's blaming you?" said Harker, whom the news had suddenly brought on terms of familiarity with his friend's friend. "When will he be here?"

"Very soon, I suppose."

"And then you'll tell him?"

"You will, please," said Booms, quite eagerly for him.

"Somebody must, poor fellow!" said Harker. "We don't know what we may be losing by the delay."

"Of course it's my fault for not waking him up in the middle of the night and telling him," said Booms dismally.

"Is there anything about it in the papers?" said Harker, taking up a _Times_.