“Done! Why, he has turned me out of his office, just because he wanted to make room for the son of a rich client, for nothing else in the world.”
“That was rough,” Walter answered, thinking almost against his will that Wimple had never been very accurate and that this account was possibly not a fair one. “What excuse did he make?”
“He said my health was bad, that I was not strong enough to do the work, and had better take a few months’ holiday.”
“Well, but that was rather kind of him.”
“He didn’t mean it for kindness;” and Mr. Wimple looked at his friend with dull severity in his eyes. “He wanted to give my place in his office to some one else. But it is quite true about my health. I am very delicate, Walter. I must take a few months’ rest.”
“Then perhaps he was right after all. But can you manage the few months’ rest?” Walter asked, hesitating, for he knew the question was expected from him. In old days he had had so much to do with Wimple’s affairs that he did not like now to ignore them altogether.
“He makes me an allowance, of course, but it’s not sufficient,” Alfred Wimple answered reluctantly; “I wanted him to keep my post open for a few months, but he refused, though he’s the only relation I have.”
“Well, but he has been pretty good,” Walter said, in a pacific voice, “and perhaps he thinks you really want rest. It’s not bad of him to make you an allowance. It’s more than any one would do for me if I had to give up work for a bit.”
“He only does it because he can’t well refuse, and it’s a beggarly sum, after all.”
To which Walter answered nothing. He had always felt angry with himself for not liking Alfred better; they were such very old friends. They had been school-fellows long ago, and afterwards, when Walter was at Cambridge and Alfred was an articled clerk in London (he was by three years the younger of the two), there had been occasions when they had met and spent many pleasant hours together. To do Walter justice, it had always been Alfred who had sought him and not he who had sought Alfred, for in spite of the latter’s much professed affection Walter never wholly trusted him; he hated himself for it, but the fact remained. “The worst of Alfred is, that he lies,” he had said to himself long ago. He remembered his own remark to-day with a certain amount of reproach, but he knew that he had not been unjust; still, after all, he thought it was not so very great a crime: many people lied nowadays, sometimes merely to give their conversation an artistic value, and sometimes without even being aware of it. He was inclined to think that he had been rather hard on Alfred, who had been very constant to him. Besides, Wimple had been unlucky; he had been left a penniless lad to the care of an uncle, a rich City solicitor, who had not appreciated the charge; he had never had a soul who cared for him, and must have been very miserable and lonely at times. If he had had a mother or sister, or any one at all to look after him, he might have been different. Then, too, Walter remembered that once when he was very ill in the vacation it was Alfred who had turned up and nursed him with almost a woman’s anxiety. A kindness like that made a link too strong for a few disagreeables to break. He could not help thinking that he was a brute not to like his old friend better.