k was in his hands. A glance at
its contents satisfied him.

"Look here," said he, holding the book behind his back and parrying all
the boy's frantic efforts to recover it, "don't make a fool of yourself,
youngster."

"Give it to me! Give me my book, you--"

And the boy broke into a volley of oaths and flung himself once more
tooth-and-nail on Reginald. Already Reginald saw he had made a mistake.
He had done about the most unwise thing he possibly could have done.
But it was too late to undo it. The only thing, apparently, was to go
through with it now. So he flung the book into the fire, and, catching
the boy by the arm, told him if he did not stop swearing and struggling
at once he would make him.

The boy did not stop, and Reginald did make him.

It was a poor sort of victory, and no one knew it better than Reginald.
If the boy was awed into silence, he was no nearer listening to reason--
nay, further than ever. He slunk sulkily into a corner, glowering at
his oppressor and deaf to every word he uttered. In vain Reginald
expostulated, coaxed, reasoned, even apologised. The boy met it all
with a sullen scowl. Reginald offered to pay him for the book, to buy
him another, to read aloud to him, to give him an extra hour a day--it
was all no use; the injury was too deep to wash out so easily; and
finally he had to give it up and trust that time might do what arguments
and threats had failed to effect.

But in this he was disappointed; for next morning when nine o'clock
arrived, no Love was there, nor as the day wore on did he put in an
appearance. When at last evening came, and still no signs of him,
Reginald began to discover that the sole result of his well-meant
interference had been to drive his only companion from him, and doom
himself henceforth to the miseries of solitary confinement.

For days he scarcely spoke a word. The silence of that office was
unearthly. He opened the window, winter as it was, to let in the sound
of cabs and footsteps for company. He missed even the familiar rustle
of the "penny dreadfuls" as the boy turned their pages. He wished
anybody, even his direst foe, might turn up to save him from dying of
loneliness.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A LETTER FROM HORACE.

"Dear Reg," (so ran a letter from Horace which Reginald received a day
or two after Master Love's desertion), "I'm afraid you are having rather
a slow time up there, which is more than can be said for us here.
T