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Page 55
"Jack!" he cried. "So glad to see you! Welcome home!"
"Dear old Jimmie! This is like you!" Jack exclaimed. As he spoke he
gripped his friend's hand, and for a brief instant his face lighted up
with something of its old winning expression, then lost all animation.
"How did you know I was coming?" he added.
"Heard it at the office of the _Universe_. Did you miss Hunston?"
"I didn't see him."
"Then he got there too late--he said he was going to drive to the docks.
I'm not surprised. It's Lord Mayor's Day, you know, and the streets are
still badly blocked. I had a jolly close shave of it myself. How does it
feel to be back in dear old London?"
"I think I prefer Calcutta," Jack replied, stolidly. "I'm not used to
fogs."
Jimmie regarded him with a critical glance, with a stifled sigh of
disappointment. He saw clearly that strange scenes and stirring
adventures had failed to work a cure. He expected better things--quite
a different result.
"Yes, it's beastly weather," he said; "but you'll stand it all right.
You are in uncommonly good condition for a chap who has just pulled
through fever and a bullet hole. By Jove! I wish I could have seen you
tackling the Afridis--you were mentioned in the papers after that last
scrimmage, and they gave you a rousing send-off. You deserve the
Victoria Cross, and you would get it if you were a soldier."
"I didn't fight for glory," Jack muttered, bitterly. "I'm the most
unlucky beggar alive."
Jimmie looked at him curiously.
"You don't mean to say," he asked, "that you were hankering for an
Afridi bullet or spear in your heart?"
"It's the best thing that could have happened. They tell me I bear a
charmed life, and I believe it's true. I never expected to come back,
if you want to know."
"I'm sorry to hear you say that, old man. You need cheering up. Have you
any luggage besides that bag?"
"I sent the rest on to the _Universe_ office."
"Then come to my rooms--you know you left a lot of clothes and other
stuff there. You can fix up a bit, and then we'll go out and have a good
feed."
"As you like," Jack assented, indifferently. "But I must see Hunston
first--he will go from the docks to the office, and expect to find me
there."
They entered a cab and drove westward, through the decorated streets and
surging crowds of the city, down Ludgate Hill and up the slope of Fleet
street. Jack left his friend in the Strand, before the _Illustrated
Universe_ building, with its windows placarded with the paper's original
sketches and sheets from the current issue, and it was more than an
hour later when he turned up at Jimmie's luxurious chambers in the
Albany. He was in slightly better spirits, and he exhaled an odor of
brandy. He had a check for five hundred pounds in his pocket, and there
was more money due him.
"Where's my war-paint?" he demanded.
That meant, in plain English, Jack's dress clothes, and they were soon
produced from a trunk he had left in Jimmie's care. He made a careful
toilet, and then the two sallied forth into the blazing streets and
pleasure-seeking throngs.
They went to the Continental, above Waterloo Place, and Jack ordered
the dinner lavishly--he insisted on playing the host. He chatted in
his old light-hearted manner during the courses, occasionally laughing
boisterously, but with an artificial ring that was perceptible to his
companion. His eyes sparkled, and his brown cheeks flushed under the
glow of the red-shaded lamps.
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