“What, ain’t you saw him?” he demanded, trotting along, blacking-brush in hand, by my side.
“Yes—go away, do you hear? I don’t want you walking beside me.”
“That there clock,” said Billy, pointing up to a clock just over his usual place of business—“that there clock’s been gone seving a lump, and he ain’t been.”
“It’s nothing to do with me,” I cried angrily. “Come, get away, unless you want your ears boxed.”
“Won’t he’s boots be in a muck, though,” continued the boy, wholly regardless of my wrath, “without no shine.”
“Do you hear what I say?” cried I, stopping short threateningly.
Billy slunk off more disconsolately than I had ever seen him, leaving me to pursue my way unmolested.
I do not know where I wandered to that evening, or what I thought of as I walked. My mind was too confused and miserable to take in anything clearly, except that I had lost my friend.
Fellows passed me arm-in-arm, in earnest talk or with beaming faces, and only reminded me of what I had lost. Memories of the past crowded in upon me—of Stonebridge House, where his friendship had been my one comfort and hope; of our early days in London, when it seemed as if, with one another for company, nothing could come amiss, and no hardship could be quite intolerable; of his illness and absence, and my gradual yielding to frivolity and extravagance; then of his return and confidence in me. Would that he had never told me that wretched secret! If he had only known to whom he was telling it, to what a pitiful, weak, vain nature he was confiding it, he would have bitten his tongue off before he did it, and I should have yet been comparatively happy!
But the evil was done now, and what power on earth could undo it?