“I knew it was!” shouted a voice. “My dear old Frank, how are you?” and his hand was warmly clasped in that of Ruthven.
“My dear Ruthven,” was all Frank could say.
“I had intended,” Ruthven exclaimed, “to punch your head directly I found you; but I am too glad to do it, though you deserve it fifty times over. What a fellow you are! I wouldn't have believed it of you, running away in that secret sort of way and letting none of us know anything about you. Wasn't I angry, and sorry too, when I got the letter you wrote me from Deal! When I went back to school and found that not even Dr. Parker, not even your sister, knew where you were, I was mad. So were all the other fellows. However, I said I would find you wherever you had hidden yourself.”
“But how did you find me?” Frank asked greatly moved at the warmth of his schoolfellow's greeting.
“Oh! it wasn't so very difficult to find you when once I got your letter saying what you were doing. The very day I came up to town I began to hunt about. I found from the Directory there were not such a great number of shops where they stuffed birds and that sort of thing. I tried the places in Bond Street, and Piccadilly, and Wigmore Street, and so on to begin with. Then I began to work east, and directly I saw the things in the window here I felt sure I had found you at last. You tiresome fellow! Here I have wasted nearly half my holidays looking for you.”
“I am so sorry, Ruthven.”
“Sorry! you ought to be more than sorry. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, downright ashamed. But, there, I won't say any more now. Now, can't you come out with me?”
“No, I can't come out now, Ruthven; but come into this room with me.”
There for the next hour they chatted, Frank giving a full account of all he had gone through since he came up to town, while Ruthven gave him the gossip of the half year at school.
“Well,” Ruthven said at last, “this old Horton of yours must be a brick. Still, you know, you can't stop here all your life. You must come and talk it over with my governor.”