y drowned at
Eton. Just as I was going down for the last time I put up my hand, and
a fellow saw it and came in and fished me out. What a born fool I was
to do it! I was grateful to the fellow at the time. I hate him now!"

And the poor fellow, with all the manhood out of him, cried himself to
sleep; and Jeffreys in mercy said not a word to stop him.

A pitiful sort of friendship sprung up between the two--the bitter
strong one, and the vicious weak one. It kept a soft corner in
Jeffreys' heart to find some one who held to him even in this
degradation, and to the poor prodigal it was worth anything to have some
one to talk to.

Coming home one wet morning from one of his nocturnal expeditions,
Jeffreys found his fellow-lodger up, with a bottle in his hands.

"My boy, my boy," cried the lad, "you're in luck, and just in time. Who
says I'm lost to all decency after this? Why, I might have hidden it
away when I heard you coming up. No. There's something of the nobleman
left in me yet. Half of this is yours, Jeffreys; only help yourself
quickly, man, or I may repent."

He held out the bottle tremblingly and with a wince that spoke volumes.

"Take it. I never went halves before, and perhaps I never shall again."

Jeffreys took the bottle. It was brandy.

"Half a tumbler of that, Jeffreys, will make another man of you. It
will send you into dreamland. You'll forget there is such a thing as
misery in the world. Don't be squeamish, old fellow. You're cold and
weak, you know you are; you ought to take it. You're not too good,
surely--eh? Man alive, if you never do anything worse than take a drop
of brandy, you'll pass muster. Come, I say, you're keeping me waiting."

Jeffreys sunk on a chair, and raised the bottle half-way to his lips.

What was it, as he did so, which flashed before his eyes and caused him
suddenly to set it down and rise to his feet?

Nothing real, it is true, yet nothing new. Just a momentary glimpse of
a boy's pale face somewhere in the dim gloom of that little room, and
then all was as before. Yet to Jeffreys the whole world was suddenly
altered.

He set the bottle down, and neither heeding nor hearing the
expostulations of his companion, he left the house never to return.

That night he slept in another part of the town; and the poor bewildered
prodigal, deserted by his only friend, cried half the night through, and
cursed again the Eton boy who had once saved his life.