serving that Jack had by this time
returned from the partners' room, and was seated once more at his desk.
"No doubt he'd have let you go on tick for a twelve month, but when he
finds you owe all round to the butcher and baker and candlestick maker,
no wonder he gets a bit shy. Why, only yesterday--"

"Will you mind your own business?" I exclaimed, desperately, not
knowing how to turn the talk.

"Only yesterday," continued Wallop, complacently, evidently noticing and
enjoying my confusion, "he was asking me what I thought of your credit.
Shoddy and I are chummy you know, Crow."

"Will you shut up and let me get on with my work?" I cried,
despairingly.

"I told him," continued Wallop, deliberately, "I knew you only had
twelve bob a week, and that, though you were a very nice boy, I would
advise him to proceed with caution, as I knew for a fact--"

I sprang from my seat, determined, if I could not silence him by
persuasion, I would do it by force. However, he adroitly fortified
himself behind his desk, and proceeded, greatly to the amusement of
every one but Jack, "I knew for a fact you owed a pot of money at the
tuck shop--"

Here the speaker had to pause for the laughter which this announcement
had elicited.

"And that the Twins had advanced you getting on for half-a-sov.,
besides--"

There was no escape. I sank down in my seat and let him go on as he
liked.

I had the satisfaction of hearing a full, true, and particular account
of my debts and delinquencies, which every one--I could not for the
world tell how--seemed to know all about, and I had the still greater
satisfaction of knowing that my friend Smith was hearing of my
extravagances now for the first time, and not from my lips.

What would he think of me? How strange he must think it in me not to
have trusted in him when he had confided to me his own far more
important secret. I felt utterly ashamed. And yet, when I came to
think of it, if I had acted foolishly, I had not committed a crime. Why
should I be ashamed?

"I say," I began, when that evening we were walking home, rather
moodily, side by side--"I say, you must have been astonished by what
those fellows were saying to-day, Jack."

"Eh? Well, I couldn't quite make it out."

"They are always chaffing me about something," I said.

"Then it was all a make-up of Wallop's about what you owed?"

"Well, no--not exactly. The fact is, I do owe one or two little
accounts."

"Do you?