“No!” said Jack, “and no thanks to you it isn’t, you coward!”
Crow had evidently been too much frightened by the news he had heard to resent this hard name. He answered, meekly, “I’m glad it’s not true. I’m ashamed of that affair last night, and there’s no harm in telling you so.”
This was a good deal to come from a fellow like Crow. We did not reply, but entered the office.
There, for a few hours at least, hard work drove away all other cares. At dinner-time Jack rushed home, and brought back a further good report of the patient, whom the doctor had seen, and pronounced to be making satisfactory progress.
As for me, I stayed at the office and made up for the lost time of the evening before. Part of my work was a grand balancing up of the petty-cash, which, as Hawkesbury was due back next morning, I would then have to be prepared to hand over. It was no small satisfaction to find that my accounts were right to a penny, and to know that in the fair copy of those accounts which I drew up no ingenuity or patience would be able to discover an error. Indeed, I was so particular, that, having made a minute blot in my first fair copy, I went to the trouble of writing out another, absolutely faultless, preserving the other in my desk, as an occasional feast to my own eyes in my self-satisfied moments.
That evening I was strongly tempted to unburden my secret to Jack as we walked home. But I could not bring myself up to the point. At least, I could not do so till we got to the door of our lodgings, and then it was too late, for Jack had rushed to Billy’s bedside, and it was hopeless to get him to think of anything else. So I had to wait on, and once more to endure the sight of Mr Smith’s anxious, frightened face.
The following morning brought a letter from my uncle, addressed, not to me, but to Jack Smith. It contained a five-pound note, which he said might be useful when Billy’s doctor’s bill had to be paid, and anything that was over might go to buy the boy a suit of clothes! My uncle was certainly coming out in a new light! It was like him writing to Jack instead of me, and I thought nothing of that. But for him to send a five-pound note for the benefit of a little stranger was certainly a novelty, which surprised as much as it encouraged me about my relative.
The money, as it happened, was very opportune, for neither of us was very flush of cash at the time.
Billy, who was now steadily recovering from the shock of his blow, pleaded very hard to be allowed to get up, and only Jack’s express command could keep him in bed.
“Ga on, governor,” said he, “let’s get up. I ain’t a-getting no coppers for that there penny bang, no more I ain’t; and I ain’t a-larnin’ nothink, and she,” (we knew only too well whom he meant), “may be up to all manner of larks, and me not know nothink about it.”