My reader will hardly accuse me of painting myself in too flattering colours. I only wish I could promise him that the record of my folly should end here. But, alas! if he has patience to read my story to the end he will find that Frederick Batchelor’s folly was too inveterate to be chased away by two black eyes and a piece of bad news.
But for the time being I was fairly cowed. As I lay awake that next morning, after a night of feverish tossing and dreaming, I could think of nothing but my friend Smith—ill, perhaps dying, in the hospital at Packworth. I could do nothing to help him; I might not even go near him. Who could tell if ever I should see him again? And then came the memory of my cowardly refusal to stand up for him in his absence when he was being insulted and mocked behind his back. No wonder I despised myself and hated my life in London without him!
I got out of bed, determined at all costs to turn over a new leaf, and show every one that I was ashamed of what I had done. But as I did so I became faint and sick, and was obliged to crawl back to bed. I had all this time nearly forgotten my bruises and injuries of the previous evening, but I was painfully reminded of them now, and gradually all the misery of that exploit returned, and along with it a new alarm.
If Smith had caught smallpox from that wretched little street boy, was it not possible—nay, probable—I might be beginning with it too? It was not a pleasant thought, and the bare suggestion was enough to convince me I was really becoming ill.
“I say, aren’t you going to get up?” said young Larkins, at my bedside, presently, evidently having come to see how I was getting on after last night’s sensation: “or are you queer still?”
“I’m very queer,” said I, “and can’t get up. I think I’m going to be ill, Larkins. Would you mind calling at Hawk Street, and telling them there?”
“All right!” said Larkins. “But what’s the matter with you?”
“I’m not quite sure, but I’m afraid—have I got any spots coming out on my face?”
“Eh? No; but your face is all black and blue, and there’s a big bump on one cheek.”
“Is there? Then it must be so. Larkins, you’d better not stand too near, I’m afraid I’ve smallpox!”