villainously cunning countenance of Billy.

"What do you want?" he said angrily, casting at the intruder a look of
intense disgust.

"Beg pardon, sir," said the man, pulling his hair. "Anything in my
line, sir, to-day?"

"No!" answered Eric, rising up in a gust of indignation. "What business
have you here? Get away instantly."

"Not had much custom from you lately, sir," said the man.

"What do you mean by having the insolence to begin talking to me? If
you don't make yourself scarce at once, I'll--"

"Oh well," said the man; "if it comes to that, I've business enough.
Perhaps you'll just pay me this debt," he continued, changing his
fawning manner into a bullying swagger. "I've waited long enough."

Eric, greatly discomfited, took the dirty bit of paper. It purported to
be a bill for various items of drink, all of which Eric _knew_ to have
been paid for, and among other things, a charge of 6 pounds for the
dinner at "The Jolly Herring."

"Why, you scoundrel, these have all been paid. What! six pounds for the
dinner! Why, Brigson collected the subscriptions to pay for it before
it took place."

"That's now't to me, sir. He never paid me; and as you was the young
gen'leman in the cheer, I comes to you."

_Now_ Eric knew for the first time what Brigson had meant by his
threatened revenge. He saw at once that the man had been put up to act
in this way by some one, and had little doubt that Brigson was the
instigator. Perhaps it might be even true, as the man said, that he had
never received the money. Brigson was quite wicked enough to have
embezzled it for his own purposes.

"Go," he said to the man; "you shall have the money in a week."

"And mind it bean't more nor a week. I don't chuse to wait for my money
no more," said Billy impudently, as he retired with an undisguised
chuckle, which very nearly made Eric kick him down stairs. With a
heart-rending sigh Eric folded and directed his letter to Mrs Trevor,
and then ran out into the fresh air to relieve the qualm of sickness
which had come over him.

What was to be done? To mention the subject to Owen or Montagu, who
were best capable of advising him, would have been to renew the memory
of unpleasant incidents, which he was most anxious to obliterate from
the memory of all. He had not the moral courage to face the natural
consequences of his past misconduct, and was now ashamed to speak of
what he had not then been ashamed to do. He told