"Two or three days after, Charlie Newcome called. Tom was alone, but he refused to see him. He cursed to himself when he heard the name.
Charlie went back disappointed, but Tom made a great boast to his `friends" that same night of his `cold shoulder to the prig," as he called it, and they highly applauded him for his sense.
"Again, a week later, Charlie called once more, but with the same result. He wrote letters, but Tom put them in the fire unread; he sent books, but they were all flung into a corner. In a thousand different ways he contrived to show Tom that, though ill-used and in suited, he was still his friend, and ready to serve him whenever opportunity should offer.
"All this while Tom was sinking lower and lower in self-respect. He was contracting a habit of drinking, and in a month or two after you had left he rarely came home sober."
"And what about his bad friends?" asked I.
"There you are! why can"t you let me tell my story in peace? His bad friends visited him daily at first, made a lot of him, and praised him loudly for his resolution in dismissing Charlie, and for his `growing a man at last." They lent him money, they lost to him at cards and billiards, and they made his downward path as easy for him as possible.
"At last, about six months ago, Tom was found tipsy in the dissecting- room at the hospital, and cautioned by the Board. A fortnight later he was found in a similar state in one of the wards, and then he was summarily expelled from the place, and his name was struck off the roll of students."
"Has it come to that?" I groaned.
"Come to that? Of course it has; I shouldn"t have said so if it hadn"t," replied the testy pin, who seemed unable to brook the slightest interruption. "He took a fit of blues after that; he went to the Board, and begged to be allowed to return to his studies, representing that all his prospects in life depended on his finishing his course there. They gave him one more chance. In his grat.i.tude he resolved to discard his companions, and actually sat down and wrote a letter to Charlie, begging him to come and see him."
"Did he really?" I exclaimed, trembling with eagerness.
"All right, I shall not tell you of it again. Stop me once more, and you"ll have to find the rest of my story out for yourself."
"I"m very sorry," said I.
"So you ought to be. When it came to the time, however, Tom"s resolutions failed him. Gus and his friends called as usual that evening and laughed him to scorn. He dare not quarrel with them, dare not resist them. He crumpled up the letter in his pocket and never posted it, and that night returned to his evil ways without a struggle.
"For a week or two, however, he kept up appearances at the hospital; but it could not last. A misdemeanour more serious than the former one caused his second expulsion, and this time with an intimation that under no circ.u.mstances would he be readmitted. That was three months ago. He became desperate, and at the same time the behaviour of Gus altered.
Instead of flattering and humouring him, he became imperious and spiteful. And still further, he demanded to be repaid the money he had advanced to Tom. Tom paid what little he could, and borrowed the rest from Mortimer. He got behindhand with his rent, and his landlady has given him notice. As usual, everybody to whom he owes money has found out his altered circ.u.mstances, and is down on him. The keeper of the music-hall, the tailor, the cigar merchant, are among the most urgent."
"And your being here is a result of all this, I see," said I, knowing the story was at an end, and considering my tongue to be released.
"Find out!" angrily retorted the pin, relapsing into ill-tempered silence.
I had little enough inclination to revert to the sad topic, and for the rest of that day gave myself up to sorrow and pity for Tom Drift. One thing I felt pretty sure of--it would not be long before he came again; and I was right.
In two days he entered the office, wild and haggard as before, but with less care to conceal his visit.
This time he laid on the counter the famous lance-wood fishing-rod which Charlie had given him months ago, and which surely ought to have been a reminder to him of better times.
He flung it down, and taking the few shillings the p.a.w.nbroker advanced on it, hurried from the shop.
The next time he came some one else was in the shop. A pa.s.sing flush came over Tom"s face on discovering a witness to his humiliation; but he transacted his business with an a.s.sumed swagger which ill accorded with his inward misery. For even yet Tom Drift had this much of hope left in him--that he knew he was fallen, and was miserable at the thought. His self-respect and sensitiveness had been growing less day by day, and he himself growing proportionately hardened; but still he knew what remorse was, and by the very agony of his shame was still held out of the lowest of all depths--the depths of ruthless sin.
The stranger in the shop eyed him keenly, and when he had gone said to the p.a.w.nbroker, "He"s a nice article, he is!"
"Not much good, I"m thinking," observed the p.a.w.nbroker, dryly.
"So you may say; I know the beauty. He banged me on the "ed with a chair once, when he was screwed. Never mind, I know of two or three as is after him."
And so saying, the disreputable man departed.
After that Tom came daily. Now it was an article of clothing, now some books, now some furniture, that he brought. It was soon evident that not only was he miserable and dest.i.tute, but ill too; and when presently for a fortnight he never pa.s.sed the now well-known door, I knew that the fever had laid him low.
Poor Tom Drift! I wondered who was there now to nurse him in his weakness and comfort him in his wretchedness. He must be untended and unheeded. Well I knew his "friends" (oh, sad perversion of the sacred t.i.tle!) would keep their distance, or return only in time to quench the first sparks of repentance. If only Charlie could have seen him at this time, with his spirit cowed and his weary heart beating about in vain for peace and hope, how would he not have flown to his bedside, and from those ruins have striven to help him to rise again to purity and honesty.
But no Charlie was there. Since the last appealing letter so scornfully rejected, Tom had heard not a word of him or from him. What wonder indeed if after so many disappointments and insults, the boy should at length leave his old schoolfellow to his fate?
With returning health there came to Tom no returning resolutions or efforts. The friends who had deserted his sick-bed were ready, as soon as ever he rose from it, with their temptations and baneful influence.
One of his first visits after his recovery was to my master with a pair of boots. He looked so pale and feeble that the p.a.w.nbroker inquired after his health--a most unusual departure from business on the part of that merchant.
"Hope you"re feeling better," he said.
"Yes; so much the better for you," replied Tom with a ghastly smile.
"What can you give me for these, they are nearly new?"
"Five shillings?"
"Oh, anything you like; I"ve to pay two pounds to-morrow. What you give me is all I shall have to do it with--I don"t care!"
The p.a.w.nbroker counted out the five shillings, and handed them across the counter.
"Good-bye!" said Tom, with another attempt at a smile; "I shall have to change my address to-morrow."
And with that he turned on his heel. I watched him through the window as he left the shop. He walked straight across the road and went in at the public-house opposite.
And that glimpse was the last sight I had of Tom Drift for many, many months.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
HOW I WAS KNOCKED DOWN BY AN AUCTIONEER, AND PICKED UP BY A COUNTRYMAN.
One day, about two years after my arrival at the p.a.w.nbroker"s shop, an unusual circ.u.mstance happened to break the monotony of my unruffled existence. This was nothing more nor less than a Clearance Sale. I must tell you how it happened.
For a week, every night, I saw my master poring over a big account-book in his parlour, comparing the entries in it with those of his p.a.w.n- tickets, and marking off on one list what articles had been p.a.w.ned and redeemed, and on another what had been p.a.w.ned and still remained unredeemed. So lengthy and complicated a process was this that it consumed the entire week. The next week further indications of a coming change manifested themselves. A printer came to the office with a bill for approval, worded as follows:--
"Great Clearance Sale! The entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock of a p.a.w.nbroker will be sold by auction at the Central Mart, on Monday next, by Mr Hammer. Sale to commence at twelve o"clock precisely. Catalogues will be ready on Sat.u.r.day, and may be had on application."
Thus I, and one or two of my neighbours on the shelf, read as we peeped through the crack at the printer"s proof-sheet.
"`Entire valuable and miscellaneous unredeemed stock!" that"s a good bit of writing," observed a pair of silver sugar-tongs near me; "that means you and me and the rest, Ticker. Who"d have thought of us getting such a grand name!"
"Well, it strikes me we, at least I, have been lying here idle long enough," said I; "it"s two years since I came here."
"Bless you, that"s no time," said the tongs. "I knew a salt-spoon lay once ten years before he was put up--but then, you know, we silver things are worth our money any time."
"Yes," said I, "we are."
The tongs laughed. "You don"t suppose I meant you when I talked of silver things, do you?"