with you. We'll hear of you at the head of
your profession before Jim and I have left school."

"Not quite so soon," replied Tom, laughing.

Then came a last good-bye, and the cab drove off. As it turned the
corner of the drive Tom leaned out of the window and held me out in his
hand.

Long shall I remember that parting glimpse. He was standing on the
steps with Jim waving his hands. The sun shone full on him, lighting up
his bright face and curly head. I thought as I looked, "Where could one
find his equal?"--_Sans peur et sans reproche_--"matchless for
gentleness, honesty, and courage," and felt, as the vision faded from
me, that I should never see another like him. And I never did.

Little, however, did I dream in what strange way I was next to meet
Charlie Newcome.

CHAPTER ELEVEN.

HOW TOM DRIFT MADE ONE START IN LONDON, AND PREPARED TO MAKE ANOTHER.

The two months that followed my departure from Randlebury were
melancholy and tedious.

It was hard for me, after the boisterous surroundings of a public
school, to settle down to the heavy monotony of a dull lodging in a back
street of London; and it was harder still, after being the pride and
favourite of a boy like Charlie Newcome, to find myself the property of
Tom Drift.

Not that Tom used me badly at first. He wound me up regularly, and for
the sake of his absent friend honoured me with a considerable share of
his affection.

Indeed, for the first week or so he was quite gushing, scarcely letting
me out of his sight, and sometimes even dropping a tear over me. And I,
remembering Charlie's last words, "Be good to Tom Drift," felt glad to
be able to remind my new master of old times, and keep fresh the hopes
and resolutions with which Charlie had done so much to inspire him. But
Tom Drift, I could not help feeling, was not a safe man.

There was something lacking in him, and that something was ballast. No
one, perhaps, ever had a greater theoretical desire to be all that was
right and good, but that was not in itself enough.

In quiet, easy times, and with a guiding friend to help him, Tom Drift
did well enough; but left to himself amid currents and storms he could
hardly fail to come to grief, as we shall presently see.

For the first two months he stuck hard to his work he was regular at
lectures, and attentive when there; he spent his spare time well in
study bearing upon the profession for which he was preparing; he wrote
and hea