.

Mr Shuckleford looked perplexed. He didn't understand exactly what
Horace meant, and yet, whatever it was, it put him off the thread of his
discourse for a time. So he changed the subject.

"I once thought of going into business myself," he said; "but they
seemed to think I'd do better at the law. Same time, don't think I'm a
nailer on business chaps. I know one or two very respectable chaps in
business."

"Do you?" replied Horace, with a touch of satire in his voice which was
quite lost on the complacent Sam.

"Yes. Why, in our club--do you know our club?"

"No," said Horace.

"Oh--I must take you one evening--yes, in our club we've a good many
business chaps--well-behaved chaps, too."

Horace hardly looked as overwhelmed by this announcement as his visitor
expected.

"Would you like to join?"

"No, thank you."

"Eh? you're afraid of being black-balled, I suppose? No fear, I can
work it with them. I can walk round any of them, I let you know; they
wouldn't do it, especially when they knew I'd a fancy for you, my boy."

If Horace was grateful for this expression of favour, he managed to
conceal his feelings wonderfully well. At the same time he had sense
enough to see that, vulgar and conceited as Samuel Shuckleford was, he
meant to be friendly, and inwardly gave him credit accordingly.

He did his best to be civil, and to listen to all the bumptious talk of
his visitor patiently, and Sam rattled away greatly to his own
satisfaction, fully believing he was impressing his hearer with a sense
of his importance, and cheering his heart by the promise of his favours
and protection.

With the unlucky Reginald, meanwhile, it fared far less comfortably.

"Jemima, my dear," said Mrs Shuckleford, who in all her domestic
confidences to Mrs Cruden kept a sharp eye on her family--"Jemima, my
dear, I think Reggie would like to show you his album!"

An electric shock could not have startled and confused our hero more.
It was bad enough to hear himself called "Reggie," but that was nothing
to the assumption that he was pining to make himself agreeable to Miss
Jemima--he to whom any lady except his mother was a cause of
trepidation, and to whom a female like Miss Jemima was nothing short of
an ogress!

"I've not got an album," he gasped, with an appealing look towards his
mother.

But before Mrs Cruden could interpose to rescue him, the ladylike Miss
Jemima, who had already regarded the good-looking shy