e no
attempt to speak to him. But I could not sleep. The spirit seemed to
have gone out of my life in London, and I dreaded to-morrow as much as
ever I had hated to-day.

I rose early in the morning, and after a hurried breakfast started from
the house before Jack came down. At least I could take refuge in my
work at the office.

I had the place to myself for quite half an hour, when Hawkesbury
arrived.

"Well, Batchelor," said he, "you are industrious. I thought I should be
first to-day, but you are before me. Where's your friend Smith?"

"I don't know," I said, hurriedly.

"I'm afraid," said Hawkesbury, with his sweet smile, "you and Smith
haven't been getting on well lately. I noticed yesterday you never
spoke to one another."

"I'm not obliged to speak to him," I growled.

"Certainly not. In fact I think it's very kind indeed of you to make
him your friend under the circumstances."

Of course I knew what these last words meant. A day or two ago they
would have terrified me; but now in my mortified state of mind they
didn't even offend me.

"Jack and I always got on well," I said, "until he began to interfere
with my affairs. I didn't like that."

"Of course not; nobody does. But then you know he has always been a
sort of guardian to you."

"He was never anything of the sort," I retorted.

"Well," said Hawkesbury, pleasantly, but with a touch of melancholy in
his voice, "I never like to see old friends fall out. Would you like me
to speak to him and try to make it up?"

"Certainly not," I exclaimed. "If I want it, I can do that myself."

"What can he do himself?" cried Doubleday, entering at this moment with
Crow and Wallop, and one or two others of last night's party. "Was the
young un saying he could find his way home by himself after that supper
last night, eh? My eye, that's a good 'un, isn't it, Crow?"

"Nice gratitude," cried Crow, "after our carrying him home and propping
him up against his own front door."

"I wonder what his friend Smith thought of it?" said Wallop; "he must
have been shocked."

"When you fellows have done," I said, who had felt bound to submit to
all this with the best grace I could, "I'll get on with my work."

"What a joker the fellow is!" said Doubleday. "One would think he was
always at his work."

"I want to work now," I said. "I do indeed."

"Do you indeed?" said Doubleday, mocking my tones and making a low bow.

"Since when did you take a f