“Hullo! what’s become of Cripps?” asked Wraysford.
“Oh! he’s gone,” said Stephen. “Didn’t you know?”
“No! When was that?”
“The very time you and Noll went up to Cambridge. The magistrates took away his licence for allowing gambling to go on at his house. He stuck on at the lock-house for some time, and then disappeared suddenly. They said he was wanted for some bit of swindling or other. Anyhow, he’s gone.”
“And a very good riddance too,” says Oliver.
“So it is,” replies Stephen. “By the way, Noll, what’s the last news of Loman?”
“Oh, I meant to tell you. He’s coming home; I had a letter from him a week or two ago. He says the four or five years’ farming and knocking about in Australia have pulled him together quite; you know how ill he was when he went out?”
“So he was,” says Wraysford.
“He’s coming home to be near his father and mother. He’s been reading law, he says, out in the backwoods, and means to go into his father’s office.”
“I’m glad he’s coming home,” says Wraysford. “Poor fellow! I wonder when he’ll come to this old place again.”