ted this
reminder.

"I'd give my repeater, and a ten-pound note besides, to get back that
old watch," said he. (If he had but known!) "But there's no knowing
where it is now; poor Tom Drift must have parted with it years ago."

With such talk the meal proceeded, and presently the conversation grew
more general, and branched out on to all sorts of topics. George,
having got over the first strangeness of finding himself in society,
found it not so bad after all; and, indeed, he very soon amazed himself
by the amount he talked. It was a new world to him, the hermit of the
"Mouse-trap," to find himself exchanging ideas with men of his own
intellectual standing; and he certainly forgave Jim his persistency in
compelling his company this morning. He forgot the patches in his
clothes among such gentlemen as Clarke and Charlie, and for the first
time in his life felt himself superior to his natural diffidence and
reserve. Who could help being at his ease where Charlie was? He kept
up a running fire of chaff at his old schoolfellow, for which
occasionally the others came in; and if it be true that laughter is a
good digestive, Jim Halliday's breakfast that morning must have agreed
with the five who partook of it.

"Who's this coming?" suddenly exclaimed the latter, as there came a
sound of footsteps slowly ascending the stairs.

"Two of them!" said Charlie. "Perhaps it's your tailor and your hatter
with their little bills."

"Whoever it is, they're blowing hard," said Clarke.

"They don't enjoy my `Gradus at Parnassum,'" said Jim. "Come in, all of
you!" he shouted.

The door opened slowly, and there appeared to the astonished eyes of Jim
and his party a grave middle-aged gentleman and still more grave and
middle-aged lady.

"Oh, my prophetic soul! my uncle and aunt!" groaned Jim.

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

HOW JIM'S UNCLE AND AUNT SPENT A DIFFERENT SORT OF DAY FROM THAT WHICH
THEY HAD EXPECTED.

The apparition was indeed none other than Jim Halliday's dreaded uncle
and aunt, and the object of their visit was easy to guess. They had, in
fact, taken the long journey from Cornwall as fast as express trains
could bring them, in order to remonstrate personally with their depraved
nephew on the error of his ways.

They were evidently as astonished to find Jim's room full of visitors,
as Jim on his part was to see them, and they looked so taken aback and
disconcerted that the party at once rose, and offered to