My Friend Smith

"Ga on! As if you didn't know. `Wot's up, governor?' says I. `Things is a-going wrong with me, Billy,' says he--so he does. `T'other bloke been givin' you any jaw?' says I, meaning you, says I. `Never mind, Billy,' says he--`you give me a good s.h.i.+ne,' says he, `and I won't mind the rest.' And there, I _did_ give he a proper s.h.i.+ne. He's a gentleman, he is!"

Jack Smith had still a friend. I had sacrificed him, but he had yet another, more faithful and honest than ever I had been, ready to champion his cause, and rejoicing to do him service.

I slunk home to Mrs Nash's that evening more disgusted and discontented with myself than ever. My conscience, no longer to be kept down, was reproaching me right and left. I had been a false friend, a vain, self- righteous puppy, a weak, discreditable roysterer, without the courage to utter one protest on the side of chivalry and right. And at last, at a hint of danger, behold me a pitiful, abject coward, ready to vow anything if only I might escape the threatened catastrophe.

Reader, as I curled myself up in bed that night you may imagine I had little enough cause to be proud of myself!

CHAPTER TWENTY THREE.

HOW I BEGAN TO DISCOVER THAT I WAS NOT A VERY NICE BOY AFTER ALL.

If I had flattered myself I had ceased to care about my friend Smith, the events of the evening just described served to cure me of any delusion. I had thrown myself recklessly into dissipation and riot, so as to forget him; but now, as I lay on my bed and thought over what had befallen me, my misery at losing him returned tenfold, aggravated by the consciousness that now I deserved his friends.h.i.+p even less than ever.

"He's a gentleman, he is!" The words of the little s...o...b..ack rang in my ears all night long, echoed by another voice from within, "What are _you_?" After all, had I not been doing my very best the last few days to prove Jack's own description of me as a liar and a coward to be true?

The fellows at the office next morning were in a high state of glee over the adventures of the previous evening.

"Wasn't it just about a spree?" said Wallop. "I never saw such a fellow as young Batch for leading one into mischief. I used to think _I_ was a pretty wild hand, but I'm a perfect sheep to him, ain't I, Dubbs?"

"You are so," replied Doubleday. "Batch, my boy, if you go on at the rate you did last night, you'll overdo it. Take my word for that."

I had come to the office that morning determined to let every one see I was ashamed of my conduct; but these insinuations, and the half flattery implied in them, tempted me to join the conversation.

"It was you, not I, proposed ringing the bells," I said.

They all laughed, as if this were a joke.

"Well, that's a cool one if you like," replied Doubleday. "Why, it was all we could do to keep you from wrenching off the knockers as well, wasn't it, Crow?"

"Never thought we'd keep him from it," said Crow. "If the bobby hadn't turned up, I do believe he'd have wanted to smash the windows also."

"You're making all this up," I said, half amused, half angry, and almost beginning to wonder whether all that was being said of me was true.

"Not likely," said Doubleday; "the fact is, I couldn't have believed it of you if I hadn't seen it. By the way, Wallop, is

"No, was he?" exclaimed Wallop, and Crow, and I, all in a breath.

"Well, I pa.s.sed by Daly's this morning, and he told me he hadn't been home all night, and he supposed he'd have to go and bail him out."

"What a game!" cried Wallop.

"You'd call it a game if you had to hand out forty s.h.i.+llings, or take a week," replied Doubleday. "A nice expensive game this of yours, Master Batchelor. It'll cost you more than all your eel-pies, and lobsters, and flash toggery put together."

Fancy, reader, my amazement and horror at all this! It might be a joke to all the rest, but it was anything but a joke to me. Instead of the Field-Marshal it might have been I who was caught last night and locked up in a police cell, and what then would have become of me? My "friends" would all have laughed at it as a joke; but to me, I knew full well, it would have been disgrace and ruin!

I was in no humour to pursue the conversation, particularly as Jack Smith entered at that moment, composed and solemn as ever, without even a glance at me.

My only escape from wretched memories and uncomfortable reflections was in hard work, and that day I worked desperately. I was engaged in checking some very elaborate accounts under Doubleday's direction the whole day. It was a task which Wallop, to whom it fell by rights, s.h.i.+rked and pa.s.sed on to me, greatly to my indignation, a week ago. But now it proved a very relief. The harder I worked, the easier my mind became, and the more difficult the work appeared, the more I rejoiced to have the tackling of it.

Our firm had received over a large cargo of miscellaneous goods from India, which they were about to trans-s.h.i.+p to South America; and what I had to do was first of all to reduce the value of the goods as they appeared in Indian currency to their exact English value, and after adding certain charges and profits, invoice them again in Spanish money.

"A nice spicy little bit of conjuring," as Doubleday described it, who, rackety fellow as he was, always warmed up to business difficulties.

He and I agreed to stay and finish the thing off after the others had gone, an arrangement I was very glad for all reasons to fall in with.

We worked away hammer-and-tongs for two hours (for it was a very lengthy and intricate operation), exchanging no words except such as had reference to our common task.

At last it was completed. The calculations and additions had all been doubly checked, and the fair copies and their duplicates written out, and then, for the first time, we were at leisure to think and speak of other topics.

Few things tend to draw two fellows together like hard work in common, and Doubleday and I, with the consciousness of our task well and honestly accomplished, found ourselves on specially friendly terms with one another.

Despite his extravagance and mischief, there had always been a good- nature and a frankness about the head clerk which had made me like him better than most of his companions either in or out of the office.

Although he had never been backward to lead others into trouble, he had usually stopped short before any harm was done. Even in the persecutions of Jack Smith, many of which he had instigated himself, there was never any of the spite on his side which characterised the conduct of Crow, Wallop, and Harris. And although he never professed to admire my friend, he never denied him fair play when he was roused to resistance.

"Well," said he, shutting up the inkpot, and throwing our rough copies of the invoice into the waste-paper basket, "that's a good job done.

You're not a bad hand at a big grind, young Batchelor. Crow or Wallop would have left me to do it all by myself."

Of course I was pleased at the compliment. I replied, "I rather enjoyed it."

"Well, there's not another fellow in the office would do the same," said he.

Wasn't there? I thought I knew better. "I think there's one other fellow," I said, hesitatingly. "Eh--oh, Bull's-eye! Yes, you're right there, and he'd have knocked it off smarter than you've done too, my boy." There was a pause after this. We had both accidentally got on to an awkward topic. Doubleday was the first to speak.

"I say, Batchelor," he went on, quite nervously for him, "excuse my saying it, but it's my opinion you're a bit of a fool, do you know!"

This unexpected announcement, coming from this unexpected quarter, naturally astonished me. "What do you mean?"

"Oh," said he, still rather embarra.s.sed, "it's no concern of mine at all, but when you came here about a year ago you were rather a nice boy."

"Well," said I, not knowing exactly whether to be pleased or vexed.

"Well, you're not a nice boy now, you know!" I said nothing. I knew he was right, and his abrupt words struck home harder than he thought for.

When Jack Smith, the night before, had called me a liar and a coward, I had fired up angrily. But when the rackety Doubleday now told me I wasn't a nice boy, I somehow felt a sudden pang of shame and humility that was quite new to me.

"I suppose you're going to flare up," continued Doubleday, noticing my silence, "when you've pumped up the words. I'll wait."

"No, no," said I, not looking up. "Go on."

"It doesn't concern me a bit how you and your precious friend get on,"

pursued my companion, cutting a quill pen, "and I see you're not in the same boat now by any means. But that's no reason why you should make a regular all-round a.s.s of yourself in the way you're doing."

I looked up inquiringly. "I don't quite understand," I said, meekly.

"Well, I suppose you don't exactly imagine you've anything to be proud of over last night's performances?" said he.

"No, I was ashamed of myself for that," I said.