ed, when only a minute ago I was well and strong and walking
along the Embankment."

"Why, good gracious me! that was a week ago, Jack! This is a hospital
in London, and you are in bed because your thigh is broken. But you
must get to sleep. Mr Hunter and I will come again to-morrow."

Jack obediently closed his eyes, wondered in a dreamy kind of way who
Mr Hunter might be, and who was the plucky lad he had been talking
about, and promptly fell asleep.

When he became conscious again a nurse was bending over him, and,
feeling stronger and more lively, he was propped up in bed as far as his
splint would allow, and given a cup of tea. From that day he rapidly
improved. The pain, which had been severe at first after he had
recovered consciousness, had now entirely gone, and about three weeks
after his accident his bed was lifted on to a long wheeled chair, and he
was able to get about the ward and chat with the other patients.

Almost daily Mr Hunter and his son Wilfred came to see Jack, and very
soon the two lads, who were within a few days of the same age, had
become fast friends.

"By Jove!" Wilfred exclaimed one day as he was sitting by Jack's side,
"it was touch and go for us when those four blackguards attacked us, and
you were a perfect brick to come up in time to lend us a helping hand."

"Oh, humbug! What else could I have done?" answered Jack. "I heard
your whistle and shouts, and guessed there was a row on. I couldn't
stand still, could I? so of course I came along to see what was up.
Then, when I found it was an uneven fight, I tacked myself on to the
side which wanted me most."

"It's all very well your talking like that, Jack, but you know as well
as I do that you might just as well have run in the opposite direction,
especially when you saw what brutes the men were who were attacking us.
But we'll say no more about it just now. I'll get even with you though,
old chap, if I can manage it, one of these fine days."

"Then that's agreed," answered Jack; "but before you drop the subject,
tell me what the row was really about. I suppose those fellows were
after your money!"

"Money! Yes, but in a different form from that in which you usually see
it. You know, Father runs a big store out in Johannesburg, and deals in
everything. You can get anything, from a bag of peas or a tin tack to
Kimberley diamonds of the first water, from his shop, and it's the last
that those ruffians were after. Bu