followed him ready to do anything to show my
contrition, ready to make any atonement in my power for the wrong I had
done him. One gentle word from him, one encouraging look, would have
made the task easy. But this angry taunt, deserved as it was--nay, just
because it was so fully deserved--stirred up in me a sudden sense of
disappointment and resentment which choked all other feelings.

This was my reward for the effort I had made! This was the friend I had
striven so desperately to recover!

He gave me no time to retort, even if I could have found the words to do
so, but turned on his heel and left me, humbled and smarting, to find
out that it would have been better far for me had I never tried to make
matters right with Jack Smith.

But I was too angry to be dispirited that night. His bitter words rang
in my ears at every step I took, and though my conscience cried out they
were just, my pride cried out louder they were cruel. I longed to get
out of their sound and forget the speaker. Who was he, a convict's son,
to accuse me as he had? Half an hour ago it had been I who had wronged
him. Now, to my smarting mind, it seemed as if it was he who was the
wronger, and I the wronged.

"Hullo, old fly-by-night," suddenly exclaimed a voice beside me, as I
walked slowly on my way; "what's the joke? Never saw such a fellow for
grinning, upon my honour. Why can't you look glum for once in a way,
eh, my mouldy lobster?"

I looked up and saw Doubleday, Crow, Wallop, and Whipcord, arm-in-arm
across the pavement, and Hawkesbury and Harris following on behind.

"Still weeping for his lost Jemima, I mean Bull's-eye," said Wallop,
"like what's his name in the Latin grammar."

It wasn't often Wallop indulged in classical quotations, but when he did
they were always effective, as was the case now.

My recent adventure had left me just in an hysterical mood; and try all
I would, I could not resist laughing at the very learned allusion.

"Bull's-eye be hanged!" I exclaimed, recklessly. "Hear, hear," was the
general chorus. "Come along," cried Doubleday. "Now you are sober you
can come along with us. Hook on to Whip. There's just room for five on
the pavement comfortably. Plenty of room in the road for anybody else.
Come on, we're on the spree, my boy, and no mistake. Hullo, old party,"
cried he to a stout old lady who was approaching, and innocently
proposing to pass us; "extremely sorry--no thoroughfare this wa