"Can't you let the youngster alone?" said Wentworth, approaching the group.
They turned in amazement at his interruption; and one of them, a thick-set, pugnacious lad, inquired contemptuously, if irrelevantly—
"Well, and what could you do, anyhow, Mr. Philosopher? I didn't think you would care to risk a fight."
"Didn't you?" came the cool response, as the young engineer calmly doffed his coat. "You will think differently in a few minutes."
And when he had polished off his antagonist in a scientific manner that delighted the hearts of the beholders, even the defeated champion could not forbear his tribute.
"You are too much for me, Wentworth," he said feelingly, when he had recovered himself. "But I think it was mighty mean of you deceiving us so long."
After that Wentworth and Armstrong were always together; a bond of sympathy had sprung up between them, and before long they were sharing the same room, and were known as David and Jonathan by their engineering associates. Wentworth's history was none of the brightest. His father had been a sea captain, and though ten years had elapsed since he and his ship had gone to the bottom in the China seas, Bob's memory easily carried him back to their last parting; and he recalled how, childlike, he had volunteered to take care of his mother until the captain came back—and he never came back. The widowed mother, left with her two children—Bob, and his sister Lucy, two years younger than himself—knowing how the roaming nature of the father had been repeated in the son, sought a home as far away from the sea as possible, and did her utmost on the scanty income left her to give them both the best of education. But Bob, old beyond his years, knew more of his mother's struggle than she guessed, and at fourteen he quietly seized an opportunity that offered, and apprenticed himself to the well-known firm of engineers already mentioned—and told his mother afterwards. And the discontent which he felt with his somewhat grimy surroundings, though hidden from his mother and sister, was often and often poured into the ears of his companion, whose sympathy was ever ready and sincere, and found culmination in the expression which opens this chapter.
And now that they had decided on a definite plan of action, they lost no time in carrying it into effect. So, a few days later, having called on their employer and explained their reasons for leaving his service, they directed their steps towards a general shipping office in order to procure full information concerning the vessels and routes of sailing to Australia.
When they entered the doorway there were no intending voyagers engaging the attention of the clerk; but while Wentworth was making inquiries, some one entered and stood a little way behind the pair, and beguiled his time while he waited by whistling, most horribly out of tune, that familiar ballad, "Home, Sweet Home!"
"You can go to Australia by P. and O. or Orient Line, via the Suez Canal," the clerk reeled off glibly. "Or you may avoid the heat of the Red Sea by travelling round the Cape in a Shaw Savill, or New Zealand Shipping Company's boat. To what port do you wish to sail?"