When Tom reached his lodgings that night he found a jubilant letter from
Charlie awaiting him.
"Just fancy," he said, "it's only three weeks more, old man, and then to
Jericho with books, and test-tubes, and anatomy! I'll drag you out of
your study by the scruff of your neck, see if I don't; I'll clap a
knapsack on your back, and haul you by sheer force down into Kent.
There you shall snuff the ozone, and hold your hat on your head with
both hands on the cliff top. I'll hound you through old castles, and
worry you up hills. If I catch so much as a leaflet on chemistry in
your hands, I'll tear it up and send it flying after the sea-gulls. In
short, I shouldn't like to say what I won't do, I'm so wild at the
prospect of a week with you. Of course, the dear old people growl at me
for leaving them in the lurch; but they are glad for us to get the blow;
indeed, my pater insists on paying the piper, which is handsome of him.
I expect I shall get a day in London on my way, either going or
returning; and if you can put me up at your diggings for the night,
we'll have a jolly evening, and you can show me all your haunts."
Tom gasped as he got so far; and well he might.
"I'll tell you all the news when I come. I suppose, by your not
writing, you are saving yours up for me. Ta, ta, old boy, and _au
revoir_ in twenty-one days! Hurrah! Yours ever,--C.N."
Tom, in his misery, crushed the letter up in his fingers and flung it
from him. If a passing pang shot through his breast, it was followed
almost instantly by other feelings of vexation and shame. One moment he
was ready to sink to the floor in a passion of penitence and remorse--
the next, he was ready to resent Charlie's influence over him even at a
distance, and to sneer, as Gus and his friend had done, at the boy's
expense. His brain was too muddled with the excitement and the strange
emotions of that evening to reason with himself; his head ached, and his
mind was poisoned.
"What right has the fellow always to be following me up in this way?" he
asked. "I'm a fool to stand it. Why can't I do as I choose without his
pulling a long face?"
Thus Tom questioned, and thus he proved that it was Charlie's influence
more than his letter that worried him; for what had the latter said,
either in the way of exhortation or reproof?
Then he threw himself on the bed, and lay with the wild memory of the
evening crowding on his feverish mind. He rose, and, lighting a candle,
endeavoured to read; but even his novel was flat and stupid, and in the
midst of it he fell asleep, to dream of Gus and his friend all night
long. Long ere he awoke my senses had left me, for he had neglected to
wind me up. Next morning he went to lectures as usual. To his fellow-
students he appeared the same shy, quiet youth he had always seemed; to
Mr
Newcome, whom he met in the street, he appeared still as Charlie's
chosen and dear friend, ready for his holiday and rejoicing in the
prospect of the coming meeting; to his professors he appeared still the
same steady, hard-working student, bent on making his way in his
profession. But to himself, alas! how altered, how degraded he
appeared!
In the midst of his duties his thoughts ran continually--now back to the
strange experience of last evening, now forward to the doubtful events
of this.
The recollection of the past had lost a good deal of its repulsiveness
after twelve hours' interval, and although he still felt it to be low
and harmful, he yet secretly encouraged his curiosity to revisit the
place of his temptation.
"After all, it did me no harm," said he to himself; "it's not interfered
with my work, or made me feel worse than before. What harm in going
again to-night? When Charlie comes, and we get away from town, I shall
easily be able to break it off; and besides, Charlie's sure to help to
put me square; he always does. Yes; I think I'll just go and see what's
on there to-night; it can't be worse than it was. Besides," thought he,
glad to seize on any straw of excuse, "I'm bound in honour to play Gus a
return match; it would be ungentlemanly to back out of that."
But why sicken you, dear reader, and myself, with recapitulating the sad
workings of this poor fellow's mind? The more he tried to convince
himself he was doing only a slight wrong, the more his conscience cried
out he was running to his ruin. But he stopped his ears and shut his
eyes, and blindly dared his fate. He went that evening to the music-
hall. He met Gus and Mortimer, and two other friends. He had taken
care to get himself up in a nearer approach to his companions' style.
He bought some cigars of his own on the way, and offered them with a
less awkward swagger than he had been able to assume the night before.
He found himself able to nod familiarly to the barmaid, and fancied that
even Mortimer must have approved of the way in which he ordered about
the billiard-marker.
In the match with Gus for half-crowns he lost, though only narrowly--so
narrowly that he was not content, without a further trial of skill, to
own himself beaten, and therefore challenged his adversary to a second
meeting the next evening. Then he watched the others play, and betted
with Mortimer on the result--and alas! for him, he won.