CHAPTER XII.--LEWIS FORFEITS THE RESPECT OF ALL POOR-LAW GUARDIANS.

Equally surprised and mystified at the complete manner in which the tables had been turned upon him, Bracy stood listening with a disgusted expression of countenance to the peals of laughter which his discomfiture elicited from his companions.

“Yes, laugh away,” growled the victimised practical joker; “it’s all very funny, I dare say, but one thing I’ll swear in any court of justice, which is, that you have been talking real Persian, at least if what Frere jabbers is real Persian.”

“Of course I have,” returned Leicester, still in convulsions. “When Frere and I planned this dodge we knew what a wide-awake gentleman we had to deal with, and took our measures accordingly. I learned four Persian sentences by heart from his dictation, and pretty good use I have made of them too, I think.”

“It was not a bad idea, really,” observed Bracy, who, having got over his annoyance at the first sense of defeat, instantly recovered his good-humour. “How well you are got up! I did not recognise you one bit till you pulled off the barnacles.”

“Yes, I got little Stevens, who does the light comic business at one of the minors, to provide the apparel and come and dress me. I hope you admire my complexion; he laid on the red and yellow most unsparingly.”

“He has done it vastly well,” returned Bracy. “I shall cultivate that small man; he may be extremely useful to me on an occasion.”

“Now we ought to be going upstairs,” interrupted Frere; “these waiter fellows are beginning to stare at us suspiciously too. I say, Bracy, cut it short, man; we have had all the fun now, and I’m getting tired of the thing.”

“Ya, Meinheer,” rejoined Bracy aloud, adding in a lower tone, “The slaveys will swallow that or anything else for Persian. They are all more or less drunk, by the fishy expression of their optics.”

Laura Peyton was astonished somewhat later in the evening by the Addiscombe professor leaning over the back of the sofa on which she was seated and asking whether she had enjoyed her last valse at Almack’s the evening before last.

“Surely you can feel no particular interest about such a frivolous and unintellectual matter, sir,” was the reply.

“I was about to follow up the inquiry by asking whether your partner made himself agreeable.”

“To which I shall reply, after the Irish fashion, by asking how it can possibly concern you to know, sir?”

“Merely because I have the honour of the gentleman’s acquaintance.”

“That, in fact, you are one of those uncommon characters who know themselves,” returned Laura with an arch smile. “Is not that what you wish to impress upon me, Mr. Leicester?”

Charley laughed, then continued in a lower tone, “I saw you knew me. Did your own acuteness lead to the discovery, or are there traitors among us?”

“Your friend Mr. Arundel’s expressive features let me into the secret of his acquaintance with the English language before we went down to supper; but I entered into a contract, not to betray the plot if he would tell me all I might wish to know about it, so the moment he came up I made him inform me who you were. What a gentlemanly, agreeable person he is!”

As she said this a slight shade passed across Leicester’s good-natured countenance, and he replied, more quickly than was his wont--

“I had fancied Miss Peyton superior to the common feminine weakness of being caught by the last handsome face.”

“What a thoroughly _man_-like speech!” returned the young lady. “Did I say anything about his appearance, sir? Do you suppose we poor women are so utterly silly that we can appreciate nothing but a handsome face? Your professor’s disguise has imbued you with the Turkish belief that women have no souls.”

“No one fortunate enough to be acquainted with Miss Peyton would continue long in such a heresy,” replied Leicester, with the air of a man who thinks he is saying a good thing.

“Yes, I knew you would make some such reply,” returned Laura. “You first show your real opinion of women by libelling the whole sex, and then try to get out of the scrape by insulting my understanding with a personal compliment. Wait,” she continued, seeing he was about to defend himself, “you must not talk to me any more now, or you will excite Lady Lombard’s suspicions and betray the whole conspiracy. Go away, and send my new friend Mr. Arundel Hassan Bey here; Lady Lombard committed him to my charge, and I want to cultivate him.”

Leicester tried to assume a languishing look, which he was in the habit of practising upon young ladies with great success, but becoming suddenly conscious of the wig and spectacles, and gathering from Laura’s silvery laugh that such adjuncts to an interesting expression of countenance were incongruous, not to say absurd, he joined in her merriment, then added, “You are in a very wicked mood to-night, Miss Peyton; but I suppose I must e’en do as you bid me, and reserve my revenge till some more fitting opportunity;” then, mixing with the crowd, he sought out Lewis and delivered the young lady’s message to him, adding in his usual drawling tone, “You have made a what-do-ye-call-it--an impression in that quarter. Women always run after the last new face.”

“You are right,” returned Lewis, with a degree of energy which startled his listless companion; “and those men are wisest who know them for the toys they are, and avoid them.”

Leicester gazed after his retreating figure in astonishment, then murmured to himself, “What’s in the wind now, I wonder; is the good youth trying to keep up the Asiatic character, or suddenly turned woman-hater? Confound that little Peyton girl, how sharp she was to-night!”

“How very well Mr. Leicester is disguised!” observed Laura Peyton to Lewis, after they had conversed in German for some minutes on general topics.

“Yes,” replied Lewis; “though I can’t say his appearance is improved by the alteration.”

“A fact of which he is fully aware,” returned Laura, smiling.

A pause ensued, which was terminated by Laura’s asking abruptly, “Do gentlemen like Mr. Leicester?”

“Really I have not sufficient knowledge of facts to inform you, but I should say he is a very popular man.”

“Popular man! I hate that phrase,” returned his companion pettishly. “It is almost as bad as describing any one as a man about town, which always gives me the idea of a creature that wears a pea-jacket, lives at a club, boards on cigars, talks slang, carries a betting-book, and never has its hair cut. Can’t you tell me what you think of Mr. Leicester yourself?”

“Well, I think him gentlemanly, good-natured, agreeable up to a certain point, cleverish---”

^ “Yes, that will do; I quite understand. I don’t think you do him justice--he has a kind heart, and more good sense than you are disposed to give him credit for. You should not form such hasty judgments of people; a want of charity I perceive is one of your faults. And now I must wish you good-night; I hear my kind old chaperone anxiously bleating after me in the distance.”

So saying she arose and hastened to put herself under the protection of “a fine old English gentlewoman,” who, with a hooked nose, red gown, and green scarf, looked like some new and fearful variety of the genus Parroquet. At the same time, Bracy summoned Lewis to join the Prince, who was about to depart, which, after Lady Lombard had in an enthusiasm of gratitude uttered a whole sentence in the largest capitals, he was allowed to do.

Leicester accompanied them, tearing himself away from Professor Malchapeau, who had singled him out as a brother savan, and commenced _raconte_-ing to him his affecting history, thereby leaving that shaggy little child of misfortune to lament to his sympathising hostess the melancholy fact that “Zie Professor Addiscombe had cut his little tale off short, and transported himselfs avay in von great despatch.”

’Twere long to tell the jokes that were made, the new and additional matter brought to light, as each of the quartette, assembled round a second edition of supper in Bracy’s rooms, detailed in turn his own personal experiences of the evening’s comicalities--the cigars that were smoked, or the amount of sherry cobbler that was imbibed: suffice it to say, that a certain lyrical declaration that they would not “go home till morning,” to which, during their symposium, they had committed themselves, was verified when, on issuing out into the street, the cold grey light of early dawn threw its pale hue over their tired faces and struggled with sickly-looking gas lamps for the honour of illuminating the thoroughfares of the sleeping city.

Leicester’s cab, with his night-horse--a useful animal, which, without a leg to stand upon, possessed the speed of the wind, and having every defect horseflesh is heir to, enjoyed a constitution which throve on exposure and want of sleep, as other organisations usually do on the exact opposites--was in waiting. Into this vehicle Charley (who bore some token of sherry cobbler in the unsteadiness of his gait), having made two bad shots at the step, rushed headlong and drove off at an insane pace, and in a succession of zigzags.

Frere and Lewis watched the cab till, having slightly assaulted an unoffending lamp-post, it flew round a corner and disappeared; then, having exchanged a significant glance suggestive of sympathetic anticipations of a sombre character in regard to the safety of their friend, they started at a brisk pace, which soon brought them to Frere’s respectable dwelling. While the proprietor was searching in every pocket but the right one for that terror of all feeble-minded elders, that pet abomination of all fathers of families, that latest invention of the enemy of mankind--a latch-key--they were accosted by a lad of about fifteen, whose ragged clothes, bronzed features, and Murillo-like appearance accorded well with his supplication, “_Per pietà Signor, denaro per un pover’ Italiano_.”

Frere looked at him attentively, then exclaimed, “I tell you what, boy, it won’t do; you’re no more an Italian than I am. You should not try to impose upon people.”

The boy hung down his head, and then replied doggedly, “It’s your own fault; you’ll let an English boy starve in the streets before you’ll give him a bit of bread, but you are charitable enough to them foreign blackguards.”

“That’s not true,” replied Frere. “However, liar or not, you must be fed, I suppose; so if you choose to take a soup-ticket, here’s one for you.”

“No,” returned the boy proudly, “you have called me liar, and I won’t accept your miserable bounty. I’d sooner starve first.”

“As you please,” returned Frere, coolly pocketing the rejected ticket. “Now have the goodness to take yourself off. Come, Lewis.”

“I’ll join you immediately,” replied Lewis.

“Mind you shut the door after you, then,” continued Frere, “or we shall have that nice lad walking off with the silver spoons.” So saying, he entered the house.

Lewis waited till his retreating footsteps were no longer audible, then fixing his piercing glance upon the boy, he said in an impressive voice, “Answer me truly, and I will give you assistance. Where did you learn to speak Italian with so good an accent?”

“In Naples, sir!”

“How did you get there?”

“I served on board a man-of-war.”

“And how have you fallen into this state of beggary?”

The boy hesitated for a moment, but something led him instinctively to feel that his confidence would not be abused, and he answered: “When we got back to England and the crew were paid off I received £15. I got into bad company; they tempted me to everything that was wrong. My money was soon gone; I had no friends in London, and I wouldn’t have applied to them after going on so bad if I’d had any. I sold my clothes to buy bread; and when I had nothing left I begged, and lately I’ve passed myself off as an Italian boy, because I found people more willing to give to me.”

“And do you like your present life?”

“No, I have to bear cold and hunger; and when people speak to me as _he_ did just now it makes me feel wicked. Some day it will drive me mad, and I shall go and murder somebody.”

“What do you wish to do, then?”

“If I could buy some decent clothes, I’d walk down to Portsmouth and try and get afloat again.”

“And what would it cost to provide them?”

“I could rig myself out for a pound.”

Lewis paused for a moment, then added quickly: “Boy, I am poor and proud, as you are, therefore I can feel for you. Had I been exposed to temptation, friendless and untaught, I might have fallen as you have done. You have learnt a bitter lesson and may profit by it; it is in my power to afford you a chance of doing so.”

He drew a card from his pocket and wrote upon it a few words in pencil, then handing it to the boy, continued: “There is the direction to a friend of mine, the captain of a ship about to sail in a few days; show him my card, and tell him what you have told me. There is a sovereign to provide your dress, and five shillings to save you from begging or stealing till you get to Portsmouth; and when next you are tempted to sin remember its bitter fruits.”

As he spoke he gave him the money. The boy received it mechanically, fixed his bright eyes for a moment on the face of his benefactor, and then, utterly overcome by such unexpected kindness, burst into a flood of tears. As Lewis turned to depart the first rays of the rising sun fell upon the tall, graceful figure of the young man and the tattered garments and emaciated form of the boy.

Far different was the scene when Lewis Arundel and the creature he was thus rescuing from infamy met again upon the _RAILROAD OF LIFE!_