ury. "I won't allow it to go any
further. Here, Batchelor, go to your seat, and don't be absurd."

This tone of authority and his unasked-for interference irritated me as
much as ever the language of my two adversaries had done. Hawkesbury
was always getting the pull of me in ways like this.

I retired sulkily to my seat, saying I would thrash any one who insulted
Smith in my presence, at which the others sneered.

"All I can say is," said Wallop, with his hand still up to his face, "if
I don't get that thirty shillings he owes me to-morrow, I'll show him up
in a way that will astonish him--that's all."

With which threat he took up his hat and went out, leaving me in a very
agitated and uncomfortable frame of mind, as the reader may guess.

I would far sooner have been thrashed out and out by Wallop than be left
thus under what Hawkesbury would certainly consider an obligation to
him.

"I thought it best," said he, in his insinuating way, "to interfere.
You are really not well enough for that sort of thing, Batchelor."

During the rest of the day my mind was too uneasy to permit me to make
much progress with my work, and I was glad when evening came and I could
escape with my friend.

"You look fagged," said he, as I took his arm.

"I am rather," said I, "and worried too, Jack."

"What about?" he asked.

Then I told him all about my debts; and we spent the rest of the evening
in a sort of committee of ways and means.

Taken separately my debts were none of them very large, but added all
together their total was something appalling. Ten pounds would scarcely
cover them, and that did not include what I owed the doctor.

It was a serious business, without doubt.

Wallop's threat to insist on immediate payment, or else "show me up"
before the partners and my other creditors, may have been mere bounce;
but it may equally well have been in earnest, in which case I was
ruined.

Jack's one solicitude that evening was to keep me from fretting too
much. But it is all very well to say, "Don't fret," and another thing
to remove the cause of fretting. And that we could neither of us do.

Jack had no money. What little he had saved he had spent on books or
sent home to Mrs Shield. As for Mr Smith, senior, even if I had cared
to ask him to help me, I knew he had barely enough to keep body and soul
together. The idea of borrowing from Doubleday occurred to me, but
Smith promptly discouraged it. Besides, I