“His mother is ill,” said he. “Do you know them?”
“Rather. I was Horace’s chum at Wilderham, you know, and used to spend my holidays regularly at Garden Vale. Is she very ill?”
“Very,” said Booms; “and the worst of it is, Reginald is not at home.”
“Where is he. Horrors told me he had gone to the country.”
Booms would tell him. For the visitor called his friend Horrors, a pet name none but his own family were ever known to use.
“They don’t know where he is. But I do,” said Booms, with a tragic gesture.
“Where? where? What’s wrong, I say? Tell me, there’s a good fellow.”
“He’s in prison,” said Booms, throwing himself back in his chair, and panting with the effort the disclosure had cost him.
“In prison! and Horace doesn’t know it! What do you mean? Tell me all you know.”
Booms did tell him, and very little it was. All he knew was from Jemima’s secondhand report, and the magnitude of the news had quite prevented him from inquiring as to particulars.