“Yes, he’s nothing to do with them now,” said Jack.
“And he spends his evenings in something better than drinking and gambling and that sort of thing?”
This was pleasant for me. As the question appeared to be addressed to Jack, I allowed him to answer it for me.
“Well,” said my uncle, after a few more similar inquiries had been satisfactorily answered, “I hope what you tell me is true. It may seem as if I did not care much what became of you, Fred. And as long as you went on in the way you did, no more I did. You had chosen your friends, and you might get on the best you could with them. But now, if you have done what you say you have and given them up—”
At that moment there was a sudden tumult on the stairs outside, which made us all start. It was a sound of scuffling and laughter and shouting, in the midst of which my uncle’s voice was drowned. Whoever the visitors were, they appeared not to be quite sure of their quarters, for they were trying every door they came to on their way up. At length they came nearer, and a voice, the tones of which were only too familiar, shouted, “Come on, you fellows. We’ll smoke him out. Batchelor ahoy there! Wonder if he lives on the roof.”
It was Whipcord’s voice, whom I had not seen since my accident, and who now had fixed on this evening of all others to come with his friends and pay me a visit!
“It’s Whipcord,” I said to Jack; “he mustn’t come in! Let’s barricade the door, anything to keep them out.”
Jack, who looked fully as alarmed as I did, was quite ready to agree, but my uncle, who had hitherto been an astounded witness of the interruption, interfered, and said, “No—they shall come in. These are some of your reformed friends, I suppose, Mr Fred. I’d like to see them. Let them come in.”
“Oh no, uncle,” I cried, in agitation, “they mustn’t come in, indeed they mustn’t, they are—”
As I spoke the shouting outside increased twofold, and at the same moment the door was flung open, and Whipcord, Crow, the Field-Marshal, the Twins, Daly, and Masham, burst into the room!