“Good-bye, old boy; joy go with you. We’ll hear of you at the head of your profession before Jim and I have left school.”
“Not quite so soon,” replied Tom, laughing.
Then came a last good-bye, and the cab drove off. As it turned the corner of the drive Tom leaned out of the window and held me out in his hand.
Long shall I remember that parting glimpse. He was standing on the steps with Jim waving his hands. The sun shone full on him, lighting up his bright face and curly head. I thought as I looked, “Where could one find his equal?”—Sans peur et sans reproche—“matchless for gentleness, honesty, and courage,” and felt, as the vision faded from me, that I should never see another like him. And I never did.
Little, however, did I dream in what strange way I was next to meet Charlie Newcome.
Chapter Eleven.
How Tom Drift made one start in London, and prepared to make another.
The two months that followed my departure from Randlebury were melancholy and tedious.