ke more
time than we have to spare to do so.

Of course Mr Smith the elder--for so I had to call him to distinguish
him from my friend his namesake--rattled on in this strain, more for the
sake of keeping me interested and amused than any other reason. Still,
his talk was something better than idle chatter, and I began to feel
that here at last, among all my miscellaneous acquaintance, was a man
worth knowing.

He gave me no chance of talking myself, but rattled on from one topic to
another in a way which left me quite free to listen or not as I liked,
and finally rose, much to my regret, to go.

"Now I must be off, or I shall have Billy up to hunt me off. Good-bye,
my boy; glad to see you doing so well. You've a lot to be thankful for,
and of course you are."

"Will you come again?" I asked.

"Gladly; that is, if Billy allows me," said he, laughing, and nodding
kindly as he left the room.

"No wonder," thought I, as I listened to his footsteps going down
stairs--"no wonder Jack Smith found these lodgings pleasanter than
Beadle Square."

I saw Mr Smith frequently during the next few days. He usually came up
to sit with me for half an hour or so in the morning, and was always the
same cheery and interesting companion.

And yet I could not quite make him out. For when not talking or smiling
his face used to wear a look of habitual trouble and restlessness, which
made me suspect he was either making an effort to be cheery before me,
or else that he was the victim of a constant battle between good spirits
and bad.

However, just as I was getting to feel intimate with him, and looking
forward to hear more about him than I had yet learned, my recovery came
to a sudden and rather serious halt.

I was lying one evening propped up in my bed, with my damaged arm
feeling comparatively comfortable, and myself in a particularly jovial
frame of mind as I listened to Jack Smith attempting to instil into the
mind of the volatile Billy the art of spelling d-o-g--dog.

"Now, Billy," said the instructor, "you'll never get on at this rate.
That letter you're pointing at is a B for Billy, and not a D."

"That there B's a caution," growled the boy; "he's always a-turnin' up."

"Time you knew him, then," said Smith. "Now show us the D."

Billy cocked his head a little to one side and took a critical survey of
the alphabet before him. His eye passed once down and once up the
procession, then looking up at Jack with a