ur own way. Are you nearly ready?"

"Well,--not quite. Don't wait for me, Caudle."

"Oh, I'll wait. I don't mind waiting. They'll keep dinner for us if
we both stay. Besides, what matters? I'd do more than that for you."

"I have some idea of working on till eight, and having a chop sent
in," said Johnny. "Besides--I've got somewhere to call, by myself."

Then Cradell almost cried. He remained silent for two or three
minutes, striving to master his emotion; and at last, when he did
speak, had hardly succeeded in doing so. "Oh, Johnny," he said, "I
know what that means. You are going to throw me over because you
are getting up in the world. I have always stuck to you, through
everything; haven't I?"

"Don't make yourself a fool, Caudle."

"Well; so I have. And if they had made me private secretary, I should
have been just the same to you as ever. You'd have found no change in
me."

"What a goose you are. Do you say I'm changed, because I want to dine
in the city?"

"It's all because you don't want to walk home with me, as we used to
do. I'm not such a goose but what I can see. But, Johnny--I suppose I
mustn't call you Johnny, now."

"Don't be such a--con-founded--" Then Eames got up, and walked about
the room. "Come along," said he, "I don't care about staying, and
don't mind where I dine." And he bustled away with his hat and
gloves, hardly giving Cradell time to catch him before he got out
into the streets. "I tell you what it is, Caudle," said he, "all that
kind of thing is disgusting."

"But how would you feel," whimpered Cradell, who had never succeeded
in putting himself quite on a par with his friend, even in his own
estimation, since that glorious victory at the railway station. If he
could only have thrashed Lupex as Johnny had thrashed Crosbie; then
indeed they might have been equal,--a pair of heroes. But he had
not done so. He had never told himself that he was a coward, but he
considered that circumstances had been specially unkind to him. "But
how would you feel," he whimpered, "if the friend whom you liked
better than anybody else in the world, turned his back upon you?"

"I haven't turned my back upon you; except that I can't get you to
walk fast enough. Come along, old fellow, and don't talk confounded
nonsense. I hate all that kind of thing. You never ought to suppose
that a man will give himself airs, but wait till he does. I don't
believe I shall remain with old Scuffles above a month or