"I"m sorry," he said at length, bringing up the words with a tremendous effort, "I find I"ve not money enough to pay it. I made a mistake in coming here."
All four listeners stood with faces of mingled amazement and amus.e.m.e.nt at the boy"s agitation and the tragic manner in which he accounted for it. Any one else would have carried it off with a jest; but to Reginald it was like pa.s.sing through the fire.
"Would you mind--may I trouble you--that is, will you lend me three-and- sixpence, Blandford?" he said at last.
Blandford burst out laughing.
"I thought at least you"d swallowed a silver spoon!" said he. "Here, waiter, I"ll settle that bill. How much is it?"
"No," said Reginald, laying down his three shillings; "if you can lend me three-and-sixpence, that"s all I want."
"Bosh!" said Blandford, pitching half a sovereign to the waiter; "take it out of that, and this coffee too, and come along into the smoking- room, you fellows."
Reginald would fain have escaped; but the horrid dread of being suspected of caring more about his dinner than his company deterred him, and he followed dejectedly to the luxurious smoking-room of the Shades.
He positively refused to touch the coffee or the cigar, even though Blandford took care to remind him they had been paid for. Nor, except when spoken to, could he bring himself to open his lips or take part in the general talk.
Blandford, however, who, ever since the incident of the bill, seemed to consider himself ent.i.tled to play a patronising part towards his schoolfellow, continued to keep him from lapsing into obscurity.
"Where"s your brother living?" he asked presently.
"He"s in town, too," said Reginald. "My mother and he and I live together."
"Where? I"d like to call on your mother."
"We live in Dull Street," said Reginald, beginning in sheer desperation to pluck up heart and hang out no more false colours.
"Dull Street? That"s rather a shady locality, isn"t it?" said Mr Pillans.
Reginald rounded on him. Blandford might have a right to catechise him; but what business was it of this numbskull"s where he lived?
"You"re not obliged to go there," he said, with a curl of his lip, "unless you like."
Mr Shanklin smiled at this sally, a demonstration which considerably incensed the not too amiable Mr Pillans.
"I"ll take precious care I don"t," said the latter.
Reginald said "Thanks!" drily, and in a way so cutting that Mr Shanklin and Blandford both laughed this time.
"Look here," said the unwholesome Pillans, looking very warm, "what do you say that for? Do you want to cheek me?"
"Don"t be a fool, Pillans. It doesn"t matter to you where he lives,"
said Blandford.
"Thank goodness it don"t--or whether he pays his rent either."
"It"s a pity you had to leave Garden Vale," said Blandford, apparently anxious to turn the conversation into a more pacific channel; "such a jolly place it was. What do you do with yourself all day long in town?"
Reginald smiled.
"I work for my living," said he, keeping his eye steadily fixed on Mr Pillans, as if waiting to catch the first sign of an insult on his part.
"That"s what we all do, more or less," said Mr Shanklin. "Blandford here works like a n.i.g.g.e.r to spend his money, don"t you, old man?"
"I do so," said Blandford, "with your valuable a.s.sistance."
"And with somebody else"s a.s.sistance too," said Mr Pillans, with a shrug in the direction of Reginald.
Reginald understood the taunt, and rose to his feet.
"You"re not going?" said Blandford.
"I am. I don"t forget I owe you for my dinner, Blandford; and I shan"t forget that I owe you also for introducing me to a blackguard. Good- night."
And without allowing his hearers time to recover from the astonishment into which these words had thrown them, he marched out of the Shades with his head in the air.
It was a minute before any of the three disconcerted companions could recover the gift of speech. At last Mr Shanklin burst out into a laugh.
"Capital, that was," he said; "there"s something in the fellow. And,"
he added internally, and not in the hearing of either of his companions, "if he"s the same fellow Medlock has hooked, our fortune"s made."
"All very well," said Pillans; "but he called me a blackguard."
This simple discovery caused still greater merriment at the expense of the outraged owner of the appellation.
"I"ve a good mind to go after him, and pull his nose," growled he.
"Nothing would please him better," said Blandford. "But you"d better leave your own nose behind, my boy, before you start, or there won"t be much of it left. I know Cruden of old."
"You won"t see much more of him now," sneered Pillans, "now he owes you for his dinner."
"It strikes me, Bland was never safer of a six-and-six in his life than he is of the one he lent to-night," said Mr Shanklin. "Unless I"m mistaken, the fellow would walk across England on his bare feet to pay it back."
Mr Shanklin, it was evident, could appreciate honesty in any one else.
He was highly delighted with what he had seen of the new secretary. If anything could float the Select Agency Corporation, the lad"s unsuspicious honesty would do it. In fact, things were looking up all round for the precious confederates. With Reginald to supply them with honesty, with easy-going spendthrifts, like Blandford and Pillans, to supply them with money, and with a cad like Durfy to do their dirty work for them, they were in as comfortable and hopeful a way as the promoters of such an enterprise could reasonably hope to be.
The trio at the Shades soon forgot Reginald in the delights of one another"s sweet society. They played billiards, at which Mr Shanklin won. They also played cards, at which, by a singular coincidence, Mr Shanklin won too. They then went to call on a friend who knew the "straight tip" for the Saint Leger, and under his advice they laid out a good deal of money, which (such are the freaks of fortune) also found its way somehow into Mr Shanklin"s pocket-book. Finally, they supped together, and then went home to bed, each one under the delusion that he had spent a very pleasant evening.
Reginald was far from sharing the same opinion as he paced home that evening. How glad he should be to be out of this hateful London, where everything went wrong, and reminded him that he was a pauper, dependent on others for his living, for his clothes, for his--faugh! for his dinner! Happily he had not to endure it much longer. At Liverpool, he would be independent. He would hold a position not degrading to a gentleman; he would a.s.sociate with men of intellect and breeding; he would even have the joy of helping his mother to many a little luxury which, as long as he remained in London, he could never have given her.
He quickened his pace, and reached home. Gedge had been there, spiritless and forlorn, and had left as soon as he could excuse himself.
"Out of sight, out of mind," he had said, with a forced laugh, to Horace when the latter expressed his regret at Reginald"s absence.
Mrs Cruden and Horace both tried to look cheerful; but the cloud on the horizon was too large now to be covered with a hand.
When Reginald announced that he had written and accepted the invitation to Liverpool, there was no jubilation, no eager congratulation.
"What shall we do without you?" said Mrs Cruden.