The Amateur Gentleman

There was a moment of strained silence, then, as Barnabas sank back

on the rickety chair, Mr. Chichester laughed softly, and stepped

into the room.

"Salvation, was it, and a new life?" he inquired, "are you the one

to be saved, Ronald, or Smivvle here, or both?"

Ronald Barrymaine was dumb, his eyes sought the floor, and his pale

cheek became, all at once, suffused with a burning, vivid scarlet.

"I couldn't help but overhear as I came upstairs," pursued

Mr. Chichester pleasantly, "and devilish dark stairs they are--"

"Though excellent for eavesdropping, it appears!" added Barnabas.

"What?" cried Barrymaine, starting up, "listening, were

you--s-spying on me--is that your game, Chichester?" But hereupon

Mr. Smivvle started forward.

"Now, my dear Barry," he remonstrated, "be calm--"

"Calm? I tell you nobody's going to spy on me,--no, by heaven!

neither you, nor Chichester, nor the d-devil himself--"

"Certainly not, my dear fellow," answered Mr. Smivvle, drawing

Barrymaine's clenched fist through his arm and holding it there,

"nobody wants to. And, as for you, Chichester--couldn't come at a

better time--let me introduce our friend Mr. Beverley--"

"Thank you, Smivvle, but we've met before," said Mr. Chichester dryly,

"last time he posed as Rustic Virtue in homespun, to-day it seems he

is the Good Samaritan in a flowered waistcoat, very anxiously bent

on saving some one or other--conditionally, of course!"

"And what the devil has it to do with you?" cried Barrymaine

passionately.

"Nothing, my dear boy, nothing in the world,--except that until

to-day you have been my friend, and have honored me with your

confidence."

"Yes, by heavens! So I have--utterly--utterly,--and what I haven't

told you--y-you've found out for yourself--though God knows how.

N-not that I've anything to f-fear,--not I!"

"Of course not," smiled Mr. Chichester, "I am--your friend, Ronald,

--and I think you will always remember that." Mr. Chichester's tone

was soothing, and the pat he bestowed upon Barrymaine's drooping

shoulder was gentle as a caress, yet Barrymaine flinched and drew

away, and the hand he stretched out towards the bottle was trembling

all at once.

"Yes," Mr. Chichester repeated more softly than before, "yes, I am

your friend, Ronald, you must always remember that, and indeed

I--fancy--you always will." So saying, Mr. Chichester patted the

drooping shoulder again, and turned to lay aside his hat and cane.

Barrymaine was silent, but into his eyes had crept a look--such a

look as Barnabas had never seen--such a look as Barnabas could never

afterwards forget; then Barrymaine stooped to reach for the bottle.

"Well," said he, without looking up again, "s-suppose you are my

friend,--what then?"

"Why, then, my dear fellow, hearing you are to be saved--on a

condition--I am, naturally enough, anxious to know what that

condition may be?"

"Sir," said Barnabas, "let me hasten to set your anxiety at rest. My

condition is merely that Mr. Barrymaine gives up two evil

things--namely, brandy and yourself."