ned on the canal
bank.

"Why couldn't you have left a fellow alone? I know, you wanted to gloat
over me. Go on, be as happy as you like. Enjoy your revenge. I did
you a bad turn; now you've done me one, so we're quits!"

Here a fit of coughing would shake the breath out of the sufferer, and
it would be a minute or two before he could proceed.

Jeffreys wisely avoided all expostulations or self-excuse. He smoothed
the poor fellow's pillow, and supported him in his arms till the cough
was over and he could proceed. "It was a bad day you ever came to our
school, John"--Jonah had adopted the name by which Jeffreys was known in
Storr Alley--"I hated you the first time I saw you. You've got the
laugh on your side now; but I can tell you you wouldn't have had it then
if you knew the way I followed you up. Yes"--and here came a shadow of
his own sinister smile--"I made it all fit in like a puzzle. Did you
never miss a letter you had that day you called at the York post-
office--a letter about the dead burying their dead, and young Forrester?
oh yes, you may start; I know all about it. I took that letter out of
your pocket. And I know where you buried his body; do you suppose I
didn't see you throw yourself on the very place and say, `It was here'?
You held your nose in the air, didn't you, in the school, and palmed
yourself off on Freddy and Teddy for a model? But I bowled you out. I
showed you up. That was the day of my laugh. Now you've got yours."

The cough again stopped him; and when he recovered his breath Jeffreys
said quietly--

"Don't talk, Jonah; you bring on your cough. Let me read to you."

Then for the remainder of that day the story would rest; till later on
Jonah would abruptly return to it.

"Mother believed in you, and cried a whole day after you had gone. Yes,
and you'll be glad to hear the school broke up all to pieces. Farmer
Rosher took away his boys and spread a report about us; and at the end
of a month we had scarcely a dozen urchins. Mother and I lived like cat
and dog. I struck work, and she had to do everything, and it broke her
up. It would never have happened if you hadn't come into the place. I
couldn't live there any longer. Mother had a little bit saved, fifty
pounds or so, and one night, after we had had a terrible row, I took
every penny of it out of her money-box and came up to London. Now are
you pleased? Hadn't she something to bless you for? I say, John, get