Chapter Thirty Nine.

Which parts me from the Reader, but not from my Friend Smith.

And now, reader, my story is all but done. One short scene more, and then my friend Smith and I must retire out of sight.

It was on a Christmas day, three years after the event last narrated, that a little party assembled in a tiny house in Hackney to spend a very quiet evening.

It was, I daresay, as modest a party in as modest a house as could have been found that Christmas-time in all London.

The house had hardly yet lost the smell of paint and varnish which had greeted its occupants when they first moved into it a week ago. To-day, however, that savour is seriously interfered with by another which proceeds from the little kitchen behind, and which dispenses a wonderfully homelike influence through the small establishment. In fact, the dinner now in course of preparation will be the first regular meal which that household has celebrated, and the occasion being more or less of a state one, the two ladies of the house are in a considerable state of flutter over the preparations.

While they are absorbed in the mysterious orgies of the kitchen, the four gentlemen are sitting round the cheery little parlour fire with their feet on the fender, talking about a great many things.

One of the gentlemen is middle-aged, with hair turning white, and a face which looks as if it had seen stormy weather in its journey through life. He is the quietest of the party, the talk being chiefly sustained by two younger men of about twenty-one years, considerably assisted by a boy who appears to be very much at home on every subject, especially boots and mothers. Indeed, this boy (who might be ten, or might be fifteen, there is nothing in his figure or face or voice to say which), is the liveliest member of the party, and keeps the others, even occasionally the older gentleman, amused.

In due time the ladies appear, as trim and unconcerned as if they had never put their foot in a kitchen all their lives, and the circle round the fire widens to admit them. The elder of these ladies is a careworn but pleasant, motherly-looking body, who calls the elder gentleman “sir” when she speaks to him, and invariably addresses one of the two young men—the one with the black eyes—as Mister Johnny. As for the younger lady, whose likeness to Mister Johnny is very apparent, she is all sunshine and smiles, and one wonders how the little parlour was lighted at all before she entered it.

At least the other young man—he without the black eyes—wonders thus as he looks towards where she sits with the elder gentleman’s hand in her own, and her smiles putting even the hearth to shame.

“So, Billy,” says she, addressing the boy, “you’ve been made office-boy at Hawk Street, I hear?”

“I are so—leastways I ham so,” replies Billy, who appears to be in some difficulty just now with his mother tongue.

“You mustn’t stand on your head in the office, you know,” says the young lady, with a mischievous smile, “or the junior partner would be horrified.”

The young lady’s brother smiles, as if this observation referred to him, and the elderly lady looks particularly proud, for some reason or other.

“That there bloke—” begins the boy.

“Order, sir,” exclaims the young lady; “haven’t I told you, Billy, that ‘bloke’ is not a nice word? It’s all very well for a shoeblack, but it won’t do for an office-boy.”

“You do jaw me—” again began the boy.

“I what you?”

“Jaw—leastways you tork, you do,” said Billy, who appeared to be as much in awe of the young lady as he was hopeless of attaining the classical English.

“I say, Mary,” laughed the brother, “you might give Billy a holiday to-day, as it’s Christmas Day. You can’t expect him to master the Queen’s English all at once.”

So Billy is allowed to express himself for the rest of the evening in the way most natural to him, and shows his gratitude by making ample use of his liberty.

Presently the elder lady disappears, and returns in a minute or two with the information that dinner is ready, an announcement which Billy greets with the laconic ejaculation, “Proper!”

It is a cheery Christmas dinner that. The elderly gentleman is rather quiet, and so is the young gentleman called Fred, who looks a great deal oftener at the young lady than he does at the plate before him. But the others make up in fun and chatter for the silence of these two, and as the meal goes on the good spirits of the party rise all round.

“This is rather better than Drury Lane, eh, Jack?” says Fred.

“Rather,” says Jack. “The only fear is about its being too far away for father.”

“Not at all,” says the elder gentleman. “I’m better already for the walk every day. You’ve no idea how agreeable the streets are at three o’clock every morning.”

“Do you remember our first walk out this way, Fred,” says Jack, “when we tried to find out Flanagan?”

“Yes, I do, indeed. We missed him, but we found Billy instead.”

“Yaas, and you was a nice pair of flats, you was, when I fust comed across you,” observes Billy, who, I regret to say, has not quite finished his mouthful of plum-pudding before he speaks.

“They’re pulling down the court, I see, Billy,” says Fred.

“They are so. ’Tain’t no concern of mine, though, now she’s hooked it.”

Billy says this with a grave face, and means no irreverence in thus speaking of his dead mother.

“Mr Hawkesbury will be almost sorry to see it pulled down,” says Jack, “for he had done so much good there.”

“Poor Mr Hawkesbury!” says Mary. “I wish he would have come to us to-day. But he says he would be happier at his regular work, and we hadn’t the heart to urge him.”

“He’s good deal happier now, though,” says Fred, “since he heard from his son. In fact, he’s had one or two letters, and Hawkesbury really seems to be turning over a new leaf; so the father is quite hopeful.”

There is a pause, and then Jack changes the subject.

“Talking of pulling down places,” says he, “I saw an advertisement to-day, Fred, of the sale of that valuable and desirable place, Stonebridge House.”

“Did you?” says Fred.

And then follows a talk about old school days in which more present are interested than the two who actually take part.

“It seems a long while since we were there,” says Jack.

“It’s seven years six months and a week to-day since I left,” says Fred.

“Why, how exact you are in your dates!” smiles the young lady.

“It was on the eighteenth of June,” replies Fred. “I recollect it because it was on the twenty-first that I first met you.”

He had not meant to say this, and blushes when it escapes him, and for the next minute or two he occupies himself with his plate. So does the young lady with hers.

Then the talk drifts off to other subjects, and the party fall to sketching out the programme of their new life in London. Jack is to be home to tea every evening at seven, and as Jack’s father has not to leave for his newspaper office till eight, the little family will at any rate get one hour a day together. And as soon as the spring comes Miss Mary is going to convert the little strip of garden behind into a second paradise, and Mr Fred, if he pleases, may come and help her. Indeed, it is taken for granted that, although his lodging is away in a street hard by, he is to be considered as free of this house and one of the family; as also is Billy, provided he does not call Jack “bloke,” and attends diligently to the instructions Miss Mary promises to give him two evenings a week.

In due time dinner is ended, and the little party once more congregate round the parlour fire. Scarcely have they assembled when there is a ring at the door, and next moment a cheery gentleman called Doubleday is announced. Every one welcomes the visitor warmly, and room is made for him in the magic circle.

“Thought I’d call and pay my respects,” says Mr Doubleday, bobbing to the ladies. “Jolly snug little box you’ve got here, too.”

“Yes, it is snug,” says Jack.

“Glad to see you settled down before I go,” says the other. “Settled down both here and at Hawk Street too, eh?”

“I’m awfully sorry you’re going abroad,” says Jack, “we shall miss you badly.”

“Oh, I’ll soon be back. You see, it’s rather a good offer, this Bombay agency, and I’m bound to have to hop over to the old country every now and then to look you up.”

“The oftener the better,” says every one.

Mr Doubleday fidgets a bit in his chair, and then remarks, “I say, Smith, excuse my saying it, but I’m very glad you ever came to Hawk Street, and I may as well tell you so.”

Jack is about to say something, but Doubleday is before him.

“I know what you’re going to say, but it’s a fact. Batch here thinks so too.”

Mr Fred assents warmly.

“Fact is,” says Doubleday, “I don’t know how you did the trick, but you’ve drawn more than one of us out of Queer Street.”

“What do you—” begins Jack, but Doubleday continues, “Of course you’ll deny it, but no one believes you; do they, Batch? Why, even Crow was saying yesterday—”

“That’s Flanikin,” exclaimed Billy at this point, as another ring sounded at the door.

This interruption, though it cuts short Mr Doubleday’s speech, is a decidedly pleasant one; and when a burly, rosy-faced Irish gentleman enters and joins the party the magic circle seems finally complete.

I need not recount all the talk of that happy Christmas evening. It was a merry Christmas, without doubt, though not a boisterous one. No one seemed to want any better enjoyment than chatting over old times, or sitting and listening while others chatted; and when Mary’s sweet voice rang out presently in the words of some of the grand old Christmas hymns, the joy that lit up more than one face in the happy group spoke more eloquently than words of the true happiness which this season of peace and goodwill brought to their hearts.

In due time the hands of the little clock crawl round to eleven, and the two visitors rise to leave.

When they are gone the rest of the party once more draw in round the fire. By some accident, I suppose, Mr Fred’s chair finds itself next to Miss Mary’s, which, as it turns out, is convenient, for these two young people happen to have a good deal to say to one another which can only be spoken in whispers.

What they say, or most of what they say, is doubtless silly enough. But one or two sentences have some truth in them, and seem to express what is in the hearts of all that little party.

“Yes,” says Mary, “it really does seem as if this was the beginning of a happy time for us all.”

“I hope and trust it may be,” Fred responds.

“Dear father seems better in health and spirits already, doesn’t he? And Jack—Well, I dare say you are jealous of our taking him away from you?”

“Jealous, no!” says Fred. “He deserves all the happiness he has found, and far more.”

“Yes,” responds Mary. “He has always been a good brother.”

“This one thing I know,” says Fred. “If there is any good in me—and there’s precious little—I owe it all, under God, to my friend Smith.”

And, reader, I owe it still.

The End.