y coloured Oxford-shirt, I preferred to
array myself in one of the old flannel shirts with its time-honoured
paper collar.

Somehow I had no ambition to "make an impression" on my friend Smith.

There was his head out of the window and his hand waving long before the
train pulled up. The face was the same I had always known, pale and
solemn, with its big black eyes and clusters of black hair. His illness
had left neither mark nor change on him; still less had it altered his
tone and manner, as he sprang from the carriage and seizing me by the
arm, said, "Well, old fellow, here we are again, at last!"

What a happy evening that was! We walked to Beadle Square, carrying
Jack's bag between us, and talking all the way. The dull old place
appeared quite bright now he was back; and the meal we had together in
the parlour that evening before the other fellows came home seemed
positively sumptuous, although it consisted only of weak tea and bread-
and-butter.

Then we turned out for a long walk, anywhere, and having no bag to catch
hold of this time, we caught hold of one another's arms, which was quite
as comfortable.

"Well, old man," began Jack, "what have you been up to all the time?
You never told me in your letters."

"There wasn't much to tell," I said. "It was awfully slow when you
left, I can assure you."

"But you soon got over that?" said Jack, laughing.

He wasn't far wrong, as the reader knows, but somehow I would have
preferred him to believe otherwise. I replied, "There would have been
simply nothing to do of an evening if Doubleday--who is a very decent
fellow at bottom, Jack--hadn't asked me up to his lodgings once or twice
to supper."

I said this in as off-hand a way as I could. I don't know why I had
fancied Jack would not be pleased with the intelligence, for Doubleday
had never been very friendly to him.

"Did he?" said Jack. "That was rather brickish of him."

"Yes; he knew it would be dull while you were away, and I was very glad
to go."

"Rather! I expect he gave you rather better suppers than we get up at
Beadle Square, eh?"

"Yes. And then, you know, when I was there I heard where Flanagan was
living, and found him out. Do you remember our hunt after him that
night, Jack?"

"Don't I! By the way, Fred, has there been any news of the boy?"

"The young thief? I should fancy you'd had enough of him, old man, for
a good while to come. But I have seen him."

"Where?" aske