myself.

"Goodness knows," replied Wallop, with a laugh.

"But I won't let him do it. I don't want him to pay my debts. You must
give him the money back, Wallop." Wallop grinned delightedly.

"Oh, quite so. It's rather likely, when I've been waiting for my money
the best part of a year, I should decline to receive it when I've got
the chance! No, my boy, you can settle with Hawkesbury now. You owe
him the thirty bob, not me!"

What was I to do? I demanded an explanation of Hawkesbury as soon as he
appeared.

"Wallop tells me you've paid him the thirty shillings I owed him," said
I.

"Oh, he shouldn't have told you," said Hawkesbury, with the meek air of
a benevolent man who doesn't like to hear his own good deeds talked
about.

"I wish you hadn't done it," said I.

"Oh, you mustn't think of it," said he, blandly. "It was only because I
heard him threaten to get you into trouble if you didn't pay him, and I
should have been so sorry if that had happened."

"Thank you, but really I prefer to pay my own debts!"

He laughed as if it was a joke.

"I'm sure you do; but as I knew you couldn't do it, I thought it would
be a relief to you if I did it for you."

Could he be in earnest? He talked as if I ought to be grateful to him
instead of in a rage, as I was. Certainly it was a queer position to be
in--storming at a fellow who has just saved you from debt, perhaps
disgrace, possibly ruin, I _couldn't_ make out what to think of it.

"I daresay you thought you were doing me a good turn," I said as civilly
as I could, "but as it happens I wish you had let the thing alone."

He sighed forgivingly and went to his desk.

The moment Jack and I got outside at dinner-time I unburdened my woes to
him.

He was in as great if not a greater commotion than I was.

"What does he mean by it?" he exclaimed. "Fred, you must pay him back
at once, whatever it costs you!"

"All very well," said I, "but you know I've nothing."

"Can't you pawn anything? can't you get a job of some sort to do?
anything to pay him off. I shall be miserable as long as you owe him a
farthing!"

He spoke with a vehemence that quite astonished me.--"You don't mean to
say you're going to let yourself stop in his debt?" he exclaimed, when I
did not answer.

"Not a second after I can get the money."

"When will you hear from your uncle?"

"To-morrow morning if he writes by return. But I've no hopes from him."

"I suppose it would