"Are we near your house now?" asked Frank, whose impatience made him almost wish he had left this citizen of the world to his fate.
"Next lamp-post but two," replied the other, with an unmeaning laugh. "Boots know where they are now, I do believe—would find their own way to the scraper if I was to pull 'em off, I'll lay a hundred. Here you are, Captain, latch-key sober, at any rate. You won't come in? Well, perhaps it is late; good night, mate. One word before you cast off."
Poor Frank, chafing like an irritable horse at the starting-post, returned on his track, and Picard took hold of the lappet of his coat.
"I'll go back to Windsor with you," said he cordially. "I like Windsor, and I like you. I've reason to like both. Look here, Vanguard; there's something at Windsor that would have looked very queer if I'd been rubbed out just now; and I might have been, I don't deny it, but for you. Poor little chap, he's got nobody in the world but me! Perhaps that's why I'm so fond of him. I dare say Pharaoh's daughter thought there never was such a child as Moses when she pulled him out of the water. I know when I fished my boy out he put his chubby arms round my neck as if I'd been his father. Little rogue! I couldn't care more for him if he was my own, twenty times over.
"I'm a domestic fellow naturally, Vanguard, though I'm yarning to you now, under a lamp-post, at three in the morning. I've had a rough time of it, one way and another. Not always fair play, I fancy. Sometimes I think I'm the biggest blackguard unhung. Sometimes I hope I'm not so much worse than my neighbours."
Frank was thoroughly good-natured.
"We'll talk that over to-morrow," said he; "in the mean time, good night."
"Good night," repeated the other. "I know what I say, Vanguard," he called out after his friend, while putting his latch-key in the lock; "and to prove it, I'll show you, my boy!"
"He must be very drunk," thought Frank, speeding down the street like a deer, "and I'm glad I came across him in the nick of time—there would have been mischief if those fellows had got at him alone."
In another moment, palpitating and breathless, he was on the steps of the "Cauliflower" Club, where, passing swiftly into the hall, he espied Goldthred reading a letter by gaslight, with an expression of countenance that denoted he was profoundly mystified by its contents.