as I did
with Fisher in that affair with Lupex. And, upon my word, Johnny, I
shall have to do something of the kind again. His conduct last night
was outrageous; would you believe it--"

"Oh, he's a fool."

"He's a fool you wouldn't like to meet when he's in one of his mad
fits, I can tell you that. I absolutely had to sit up in my own
bedroom all last night. Mother Roper told me that if I remained in
the drawing-room she would feel herself obliged to have a policeman
in the house. What could I do, you know? I made her have a fire for
me, of course."

"And then you went to bed."

"I waited ever so long, because I thought that Maria would want to
see me. At last she sent me a note. Maria is so imprudent, you know.
If he had found anything in her writing, it would have been terrible,
you know,--quite terrible. And who can say whether Jemima mayn't
tell?"

"And what did she say?"

"Come; that's tellings, Master Johnny. I took very good care to take
it with me to the office this morning, for fear of accidents."

But Eames was not so widely awake to the importance of his friend's
adventures as he might have been had he not been weighted with
adventures of his own.

"I shouldn't care so much," said he, "about that fellow Crosbie,
going to a friend, as I should about his going to a police
magistrate."

"He'll put it in a friend's hands, of course," said Cradell, with the
air of a man who from experience was well up in such matters. "And I
suppose you'll naturally come to me. It's a deuced bore to a man in a
public office, and all that kind of thing, of course. But I'm not the
man to desert my friend. I'll stand by you, Johnny, my boy."

"Oh, thank you," said Eames, "I don't think that I shall want that."

"You must be ready with a friend, you know."

"I should write down to a man I know in the country, and ask his
advice," said Eames; "an older sort of friend, you know."

"By Jove, old fellow, take care what you are about. Don't
let them say of you that you show the white feather. Upon my
honour, I'd sooner have anything said of me than that. I would,
indeed,--anything."

"I'm not afraid of that," said Eames, with a touch of scorn in his
voice. "There isn't much thought about white feathers nowadays,--not
in the way of fighting duels."

After that, Cradell managed to carry back the conversation to Mrs
Lupex and his own peculiar position, and as Eames did not care to ask
from his companion further advice i