st
his last train, and would have preferred a bare plank where there were
boys to fussy old Miss Harbottle's best bed. But Vivian Knaggs shook his
head.

"The mater says she couldn't sleep with firearms in the house."

"I'll bury them in the garden if she likes."

"Then you smoke in the night, and at Coverley's you once walked in your
sleep," pursued Vivian, who certainly seemed to have been urging the
interloper's cause. "And the mater's afraid you might walk out of a
window or set the house on fire."

"I shouldn't do either to-night," protested Pocket, with a grin. "I've
not got anything to smoke, and I have got something to keep me quiet."

And with further information on both points the son of the house went
upstairs again, only to return in quicker time with a more embarrassed
gravity.

"She's awfully sorry," he said unconvincingly, "but she can't undertake
the responsibility of putting you up with your asthma."

Oddly enough, for he was only too sensitive on some points, Pocket was not
really hurt by his treatment at the hands of these people; he felt he had
made rather a mistake, but not that he had been most inhumanly cast adrift
at sixteen among the shoals and quicksands of London. Nor was this quite
the case as yet; there was still old Miss Harbottle in Wellington Road.
But to her he was not going until decency compelled him; he was going to
have another game of bagatelle with Guy Knaggs first. It will be seen
that with all his sensibilities the youngest Upton was a most casual and
sanguine youth. He took a great deal for granted, prepared only for the
best, and although inclined to worry over the irrevocable, took no thought
for the morrow until he was obliged. He was sorry he had been so positive
with Spearman on the subject of his friend's hospitality. He was sorry he
had asked and been refused, rather sorry he had not caught that last train
back from St. Pancras. Yet he left poor Miss Harbottle the best part of
another hour to go to bed in; and that was neither the first nor the last
of his erratic proceedings.

"What about your luggage?" asked the elder Knaggs, as he put on his hat to
walk round with Pocket.

"Good Lord!" cried that worthy, standing still in the hall.

"Haven't you got any?"

"I left it at Madame Tussaud's!"

"Left your luggage there?"

"It was only a handbag. How long are they open?"

Young Knaggs looked in _Whitaker_ and said they closed at ten. There was
sti