By Sheer Pluck: A Tale of the Ashanti War, G. A. Henty [100 books to read in a lifetime .TXT] 📗

to tell any one his address, as although he was not ashamed of his berth, still he would rather that, until he had made another step up in life, his old schoolfellows should not know of his whereabouts. He had also written to his friend Ruthven a bright chatty letter, telling him somewhat of his adventures in London and the loss of his money, and saying that he had now got employment at a naturalist's, with every chance of making his way.

“When I mount a bit higher,” he concluded, “I shall be awfully glad to see you again, and will let you know what my address may then be. For the present I had rather keep it dark. If you will write to me, addressed to the General Post Office, telling me all about yourself and the fellows at school, I shall be very, very glad to get your letter. I suppose you will be breaking up for Christmas in a few days.”

Christmas came and went. It was signalized to Frank only by the despatch of a pretty present to Lucy, and the receipt of a letter from her written in a round childish hand. A week afterwards he heard somebody come into the shop. His employer was out, and he therefore went into the shop.

“I knew it was!” shouted a voice. “My dear old Frank, how are you?” and his hand was warmly clasped in that of Ruthven.

“My dear Ruthven,” was all Frank could say.

“I had intended,” Ruthven exclaimed, “to punch your head directly I found you; but I am too glad to do it, though you deserve it fifty times over. What a fellow you are! I wouldn't have believed it of you, running away in that secret sort of way and letting none of us know anything about you. Wasn't I angry, and sorry too, when I got the letter you wrote me from Deal! When I went back to school and found that not even Dr. Parker, not even your sister, knew where you were, I was mad. So were all the other fellows. However, I said I would find you wherever you had hidden yourself.”

“But how did you find me?” Frank asked greatly moved at the warmth of his schoolfellow's greeting.

“Oh! it wasn't so very difficult to find you when once I got your letter saying what you were doing. The very day I came up to town I began to hunt about. I found from the Directory there were not such a great number of shops where they stuffed birds and that sort of thing. I tried the places in Bond Street, and Piccadilly, and Wigmore Street, and so on to begin with. Then I began to work east, and directly I saw the things in the window here I felt sure I had found you at last. You tiresome fellow! Here I have wasted nearly half my holidays looking for you.”

“I am so sorry, Ruthven.”

“Sorry! you ought to be more than sorry. You ought to be ashamed of yourself, downright ashamed. But, there, I won't say any more now. Now, can't you come out with me?”

“No, I can't come out now, Ruthven; but come into this room with me.”

There for the next hour they chatted, Frank giving a full account of all he had gone through since he came up to town, while Ruthven gave him the gossip of the half year at school.

“Well,” Ruthven said at last, “this old Horton of yours must be a brick. Still, you know, you can't stop here all your life. You must come and talk it over with my governor.”

“Oh, no, indeed, Ruthven! I am getting on very well here, and am very contented with my lot, and I could not think of troubling your father in the matter.”

“Well, you will trouble him a great deal,” Ruthven said, “if you don't come, for you will trouble him to come all the way down here. He was quite worried when he first heard of your disappearance, and has been almost as excited as I have over the search for you.

“You are really a foolish fellow, Frank,” he went on more seriously; “I really didn't think it of you. Here you save the lives of four or five fellows and put all their friends under a tremendous obligation, and then you run away and hide yourself as if you were ashamed. I tell you you can't do it. A fellow has no more right to get rid of obligations than he has to run away without paying his debts. It would be a burden on your mind if you had a heavy debt you couldn't pay, and you would have a right to be angry if, when you were perfectly able to pay, your creditor refused to take the money. That's just the position in which you've placed my father. Well, anyhow, you've got to come and see him, or he's got to come and see you. I know he has something in his mind's eye which will just suit you, though he did not tell me what it was. For the last day or two he has been particularly anxious about finding you. Only yesterday when I came back and reported that I had been to half a dozen places without success, he said, 'Confound the young rascal, where can he be hiding? Here are the days slipping by and it will be too late. If you don't find him in a day or two, Dick, I will set the police after him—say he has committed a murder or broken into a bank and offer a reward for his apprehension.' So you must either come home with me this afternoon, or you will be having my father down here tonight.”

“Of course, Ruthven,” Frank said, “I would not put your father to such trouble. He is very kind to have taken so much interest in me, only I hate—”

“Oh, nonsense! I hate to see such beastly stuck up pride, putting your own dignity above the affection of your friends; for that's really what it comes to, old boy, if you look it fairly in the face.”

Frank flushed a little and was silent for a minute or two.

“I suppose you are right, Ruthven; but it is a little hard for a fellow—”

“Oh, no, it isn't,” Ruthven said. “If you'd got into a scrape from some fault of your own one could understand it, although even then there would be no reason for you to cut your old friends till they cut you. Young Goodall, who lives over at Bayswater, has been over four or five times to ask me if I have succeeded in finding you, and I have had letters from Handcock, and Childers, and Jackson. Just as if a fellow had got nothing to do but to write letters. How long will you be before you can come out?”

“There is Mr. Horton just come in,” Frank said. “I have no doubt he will let me go at once.”

The old naturalist at once assented upon Frank's telling him that a friend had come who wished him to go out.

“Certainly, my dear boy. Why, working the hours and hours of overtime that you do, of course you can take a holiday whenever you're disposed.”

“He will not be back till late,” Ruthven said as they went out. “I shall keep him all the evening.”

“Oh, indeed, Ruthven, I have no clothes!”

“Clothes be bothered,” Ruthven said. “I certainly shall end by