When he was gone Jack came and smoothed my pillow. "I am glad you're to stay," he said. "Now, for fear you should begin to talk, I'm going out to Billy to get my boots blacked. So good-bye for a bit, old boy."
"But, Jack--" I began, trying to keep him.
"Not a word now," said he, going to the door. "Presently."
I was too contented and comfortable to fret myself about anything, still more to puzzle my brains about what I couldn't understand. So I lay still thinking of nothing, and knowing nothing except that I had found my friend once more, and that he was more to me than ever.
Nothing makes one so sleepy as thinking of nothing at all; and long before Jack returned from his visit to Billy I was asleep, and slept soundly all through the night.
Next morning I woke invigorated in body and mind. Jack was up and about before I opened my eyes. He was at my side in a moment as I moved.
"Well, you have had a sleep," he said, cheerily. "I have," replied I. "But, Jack, where am I?"
"Oh, this is my lodgings," said he. "I'm pretty comfortable here."
I looked round the room. It was a poor, bare apartment, with only two beds, a chair, a small table, and a washstand to furnish it. The table was covered with papers and books.
"You've got a sitting-room too, I suppose?" I said, after taking the room in.
"I find this quite as good a room to sit in as to lie in," said he, "for the matter of that. But I have got the use of another room belonging to a fellow-lodger. He's a literary man, and writes for the papers; but in his spare moments he coaches me in Latin and Greek, in consideration of which I give him half my room to sleep in."
"Whatever's he to do now when I'm here?" I asked.
"Oh, he's going to have a shake-down in his own room. You'll like him, Fred; he's a very good-natured, clever man."
"About fifty, I should think. And I fancy he's seen a good deal of trouble in his time, though I don't like to ask him."
"I say, Jack," I began in an embarrassed manner, "ever since that time--"
"Shut up, now," said Jack, briskly. "The doctor says unless you obey me in everything you're to go straight to the hospital. And one of my rules is, you're to talk about nothing I don't approve of."
"There you go. I don't approve of what you were going to say. I suppose you'll be interested to hear I reported your case to the firm yesterday, and they were very sorry to hear of it, and told me there were other fellows in the office they could have spared better. There's a compliment!"