ning with
leisure to look about us.

It was no time, however, for asking questions or giving explanations.
An exclamation from Jack turned all attention to Billy, who lay still
unconscious and as white as a sheet where he had fallen. Jack gently
raised him and laid him on the bed. "Open the window, somebody," said
he.

The air seemed to revive the boy somewhat, for he opened his eyes and
looked vacantly round. But a fit of sickness followed this partial
recovery, and again he swooned.

Jack's face was nearly as pale as the boy's as he looked up and said,
"Fetch the doctor! Quick!"

Flanagan darted off almost before the words were out of his lips.

There was nothing for us who were left behind to do but to watch with
painful anxiety the poor little sufferer, who lay mostly unconscious,
and still at intervals violently sick.

Masham's ruffianly blow and kick had evidently done far more damage than
he or any one supposed. As we waited in silence for the doctor to come
our alarm increased, and it even seemed doubtful whether, as we stood
there, we were not destined to see a terrible end to that evening's
proceedings.

"Has the boy a father or mother?" whispered my uncle to me.

Jack who sat with the sufferer's head on his arm, heard the question,
and said hurriedly, "Yes. You must fetch his mother, Fred!"

There was such a tone of alarm in his voice that had Billy's mother been
a wild beast I could hardly have disobeyed.

I darted off on my unenviable quest, meeting the doctor on the stairs.
I knew the house in the court by this time, and was myself well-known to
its inmates.

The woman was not at home; she had not been home since the morning, and
no one knew where she was. I left a message apprising her of what had
happened, and telling her to come at once to the lodgings. Then with
much foreboding I hastened back to Drury Lane.

The evening had been a strangely different one from what I had expected.
I was to have broken the news to Jack of his father's discovery,
instead of which, here was I rushing frantically about trying to find an
unhappy woman and summon her to what, for all I knew, might be the
death-bed of her son!

I found when I returned that Billy had somewhat revived. He was lying
back, very white still, and apparently unconscious, but they told me the
doctor had given some hope of his recovery, and that the fits of
sickness had stopped and left him stronger.

My uncle, whose concer