o miserable I should have felt amused at this
edifying conversation. As it was I was rather tempted to break into it
more than once, but I remembered with a pang that, though I had a friend
to stand up for yesterday, I had none to-day.

"I suppose now he's gone," sneered some one of the same set, "his
precious chum will be going too."

"I don't know," said Horncastle, pretending not to be aware that I was
in the room. "Batchelor's got some good points about him, and now the
other's gone he might improve if he stayed with us."

"Besides, he's got his lodgings paid for him, so I've heard," said
another.

"Yes, there's something in that. And on the whole he's a pretty
decent--hullo, Batchelor, I never knew you were here. So you've lost
your chum, eh?"

"You seem to know all about it," I growled, by no means won over by the
vague compliments bestowed on me.

"Oh, yes, I know all about it," cried Horncastle, mounting his high
horse, and offended at my tones. "We were too respectable for him here.
But we ain't going into mourning for him. And if you go too we shan't
blub. Shall we, you fellows?"

"Not exactly," replied the chorus, with much laughter.

I ate a miserable breakfast, and sallied forth disconsolately to my now
solitary walk to the office.

Would Jack Smith turn up at Hawk Street? That was a question which
exercised not only me but the other fellows who had witnessed
yesterday's catastrophe.

I hardly knew what to hope for. If he did come, I didn't know what I
should do, or how I should meet him. If he did not come, then I should
know I had driven him not only from me but from his very prospects in
life.

The general impression at Hawk Street was that he would not come.
Doubleday and Harris had a bet of a shilling on the event.

"If he does turn up," said Crow, "it'll show he means to brazen it out
before us all."

"Then you may be sure he'll come," said Wallop, "It was all very well
when we weren't supposed to know," said Harris, "but now it's all out he
doesn't expect us to treat him like an ordinary gentleman."

"It's certainly not anything to be proud of," remarked Hawkesbury,
pleasantly; "but--"

At that moment the door opened and Smith entered--solemn as ever, and to
all appearances perfectly composed and unconscious of the curiosity his
appearance occasioned.

But I who watched him narrowly could detect a quick, doubtful glance
round as he entered and took his usual place.