“There; don’t bother!” said Bywater, dropping the coin into his hand.
“Why, bless my heart, who’s this, a prowling in the cloisters at this hour?” exclaimed a well-known cracked voice, advancing upon them with shuffling footsteps. “What do you do here, pray?”
“You would like to know, wouldn’t you, Mr. Calcraft?” said Bywater. “Studying architecture. There!”
Old Ketch gave a yell of impotent rage, and Bywater decamped, as fast as his legs would carry him, through the west door.
Arrived at his home, or rather his uncle’s, where he lived—for Bywater’s paternal home was in a far-away place, over the sea—he went straight up to his own room, where he struck a match, and lighted a candle. Then he unlocked a sort of bureau, and took from it the phial found by old Jenkins, and a smaller piece which exactly fitted into the part broken. He had fitted them in ten times before, but it appeared to afford him satisfaction, and he now sat down and fitted them again.
“Yes,” soliloquized he, as he nursed one of his legs—his favourite attitude—“it’s as sure as eggs. And I’d have had it out before, if that helpless old muff of a Jenkins had been forthcoming. I knew it was safe to be somewhere near the college gates; but it was as well to ask.”
He turned the phial over and over between his eye and the candle, and resumed;
“And now I’ll give Mr. Ger a last chance. I told him the other day that if he’d only speak up like a man to me, and say it was an accident, I’d drop it for good. But he won’t. And find it out, I will. I have said I would from the first, just for my own satisfaction: and if I break my word, may they tar and feather me! Ger will only have himself to thank; if he won’t satisfy me in private, I’ll bring it against him in public. I suspected Mr. Ger before; not but that I suspected another; but since Charley Channing——Oh! bother, though! I don’t want to get thinking of him!”
Bywater locked up his treasures, and descended to his tea. That over, he had enough lessons to occupy him for a few hours, and keep him out of mischief.
Meanwhile Mr. Channing’s interview with the renowned Mr. Butterby had brought forth nothing, and he was walking back home with Mr. Huntley. Mr. Huntley strove to lead his friend’s thoughts into a different channel: it seemed quite a mockery to endeavour to whisper hope for Charley.