w and anxiety of this disinterested friend took
shape. He began in private, in conversations of two, to talk vaguely of
bad habits and low habits. "I must say I'm afraid he's going wrong
altogether," he would say. "I'll tell you plainly, and between
ourselves, I scarcely like to stay there any longer; only, man, I'm
positively afraid to leave him alone. You'll see, I shall be blamed for
it later on. I'm staying at a great sacrifice. I'm hindering my chances
at the Bar, and I can't blind my eyes to it. And what I'm afraid of is,
that I'm going to get kicked for it all round before all's done. You
see, nobody believes in friendship nowadays."

"Well, Innes," his interlocutor would reply, "it's very good of you, I
must say that. If there's any blame going, you'll always be sure of _my_
good word, for one thing."

"Well," Frank would continue, "candidly, I don't say it's pleasant. He
has a very rough way with him; his father's son, you know. I don't say
he's rude--of course, I couldn't be expected to stand that--but he
steers very near the wind. No, it's not pleasant; but I tell ye, man, in
conscience I don't think it would be fair to leave him. Mind you, I
don't say there's anything actually wrong. What I say is that I don't
like the looks of it, man!" and he would press the arm of his momentary
confidant.

In the early stages I am persuaded there was no malice. He talked but
for the pleasure of airing himself. He was essentially glib, as becomes
the young advocate, and essentially careless of the truth, which is the
mark of the young ass; and so he talked at random. There was no
particular bias, but that one which is indigenous and universal, to
flatter himself and to please and interest the present friend. And by
thus milling air out of his mouth, he had presently built up a
presentation of Archie which was known and talked of in all corners of
the county. Wherever there was a residential house and a walled garden,
wherever there was a dwarfish castle and a park, wherever a quadruple
cottage by the ruins of a peel-tower showed an old family going down,
and wherever a handsome villa with a carriage approach and a shrubbery
marked the coming up of a new one--probably on the wheels of
machinery--Archie began to be regarded in the light of a dark, perhaps a
vicious mystery, and the future developments of his career to be looked
for with uneasiness and confidential whispering. He had done something
disgraceful, my dear. Wh