"I am rather," said I, "and worried too, Jack."
"What about?" he asked.
Then I told him all about my debts; and we spent the rest of the evening in a sort of committee of ways and means.
Taken separately my debts were none of them very large, but added all together their total was something appalling. Ten pounds would scarcely cover them, and that did not include what I owed the doctor.
It was a serious business, without doubt.
Wallop"s threat to insist on immediate payment, or else "show me up"
before the partners and my other creditors, may have been mere bounce; but it may equally well have been in earnest, in which case I was ruined.
Jack"s one solicitude that evening was to keep me from fretting too much. But it is all very well to say, "Don"t fret," and another thing to remove the cause of fretting. And that we could neither of us do.
Jack had no money. What little he had saved he had spent on books or sent home to Mrs Shield. As for Mr Smith, senior, even if I had cared to ask him to help me, I knew he had barely enough to keep body and soul together. The idea of borrowing from Doubleday occurred to me, but Smith promptly discouraged it. Besides, I had once asked him for a loan, and he had refused it, on the ground he never lent money to anybody.
"The only thing," said Jack, "is to write home to your uncle."
I could scarcely help smiling at the idea. I knew my uncle better than Jack Smith did, and I might as well hope to get blood out of a stone as expect him to pay for my extravagances in London.
However, Jack was so sure it was the right and only thing to do that I finally consented to sit down and make a clean breast of it, which I did in the following note:--
"Dear Uncle,--I am better now, and back at work. I am sorry to say, however, I am in a good deal of difficulty about money. Before my illness I had got into extravagant ways and run into debt. I enclose a list of what I believe I owe at the present moment. You will see--not including the doctor"s bill--it comes to 10 2 shillings 4 pence. The names marked with a star are clerks at the office who have lent me money, I am sorry to say, for gambling and other purposes. I don"t know what to do about paying them back. I thought if you wouldn"t mind advancing the amount I could pay you back so much a week out of my salary. I hope and trust you will help me in my difficulty. I need hardly say I have seen the folly of my old ways, and am determined to live carefully and economically in future. Do please write by return and help me.
"Your affect. nephew,--
"Fred. Batchelor."
Jack approved of this effusion as businesslike and to the point.
"You haven"t gone out of the way to excuse yourself," said he, "and I dare say it will go down all the better for that. If he doesn"t write and send up the money I shall be surprised."
Poor Jack! A lot he knew about uncles of my sort!
However, I felt more comfortable to have written the letter, and if I could only have been sure Wallop"s threat was mere idle bl.u.s.ter I should have slept easily.
As it was, I had had rather a stirring day for my first one out, and at the end of it felt a good deal less game for work than at the beginning.
Nothing could exceed Jack"s tenderness and anxiety to relieve me of as much worry as possible. When I was in bed he came and read aloud to me.
It was Virgil he read--which he was working at for his examination.
And I remember that evening lying half awake, half asleep, listening now to him, thinking now of my debts, mixing up Aeneas with Wallop, and Mr Shoddy with Laoc.o.o.n, and poor old Priam with my uncle.
The following morning I rose only half refreshed, and made my way anxiously to the office. One of the first fellows I met was Wallop, who greeted my approach with a surly grin.
I felt sure at that moment he had meant what he threatened yesterday, and my heart quailed within me at the prospect.
"Well, young prig," said he, "I suppose you"ve brought my money?"
"No," said I; "I"m afraid I must ask you to wait a little longer. I hope you won"t do anything for a day or two, at any rate. I will do my best to get it by then."
He laughed in my face, and evidently enjoyed my distress.
"You sung a different tune yesterday, my boy, when you hit me. Do you remember? That wasn"t the payment I wanted!"
"I"m sorry I lost my temper," said I.
"Well, I mean to show you I pay my debts more punctually than you do,"
said he; and with that he gave me a cuff on my head which sent me reeling half across the office.
I could not--I dare not--return it, and he knew it.
"There," said he, laughing brutally; "now we"re quits! As to that thirty shillings, I"ll let you off, as it has been paid me."
"Paid you!" I exclaimed, in utter bewilderment. "Who by?"
"Hawkesbury!"
CHAPTER TWENTY NINE.
HOW I BEGAN TO SEE DAYLIGHT THROUGH MY TROUBLES.
Those of my readers who have read their Virgil will most likely remember an observation made by one of the gentlemen who figure conspicuously in the story of the _Aeneid_. He dreaded his hereditary enemies, the Greeks, under any circ.u.mstances; but he never dreaded them so much as when they came and offered him presents!
This was pretty much my feeling when I was told that my debt to Wallop had been paid for me by Hawkesbury.
There had been a time in my life when I almost liked Hawkesbury. More recently I had suspected him of being not quite the angel I once believed him. Later still I had felt my suspicion grow to very decided dislike. And now, at the moment when he made me his debtor for thirty shillings, I positively loathed him.
I could not guess his motive. I was certain it was not out of pure love for me or pity for Wallop. Indeed, I was pretty certain there was far more mischief than good in the action. I would sooner have owed Wallop thirty pounds than Hawkesbury thirty shillings. He knew it, too, and for that very reason paid my debt to Wallop.
"Whatever business of Hawkesbury"s is it?" I demanded of Wallop, as soon as I could find words to express myself.
"Goodness knows," replied Wallop, with a laugh.
"But I won"t let him do it. I don"t want him to pay my debts. You must give him the money back, Wallop." Wallop grinned delightedly.
"Oh, quite so. It"s rather likely, when I"ve been waiting for my money the best part of a year, I should decline to receive it when I"ve got the chance! No, my boy, you can settle with Hawkesbury now. You owe him the thirty bob, not me!"
What was I to do? I demanded an explanation of Hawkesbury as soon as he appeared.
"Wallop tells me you"ve paid him the thirty shillings I owed him," said I.
"Oh, he shouldn"t have told you," said Hawkesbury, with the meek air of a benevolent man who doesn"t like to hear his own good deeds talked about.
"I wish you hadn"t done it," said I.
"Oh, you mustn"t think of it," said he, blandly. "It was only because I heard him threaten to get you into trouble if you didn"t pay him, and I should have been so sorry if that had happened."
"Thank you, but really I prefer to pay my own debts!"