Reginald cut him short gently but firmly.
“I know,” said he. “You’d better go home now, young ’un.”
Gedge made no answer, but walked on, with his arm still in that of his protector.
Reginald saw him into an omnibus, and then returned sadly and thoughtfully homeward.
“Humph!” said he to himself, as he reached Dull Street, “I suppose I shall have to stick on at the Rocket after all.”
Chapter Eight.
Mr Durfy gives Reginald a Testimonial.
Reginald Cruden was a young man who took life hard and seriously. He was not brilliant—indeed, he was not clever. He lacked both the good sense and the good-humour which would have enabled him, like Horace, to accept and make the best of his present lot. He felt aggrieved by the family calamity, and just enough ashamed of his poverty to make him touchy and intractable to a degree which, as we have seen already, amounted sometimes almost to stupidity.