The Argosy — page 190: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

176 Edina. London?” inquired Frank, putting the question with a certain reluct- ance, for he hated to allude to the subject. “What man?” returned Charley. “ The Tiger.” “No, I have not seen him. I learnt at Oxford that I had been mis- taken in thinking he was looking after me——” “He was not looking after you,” interrupted Frank. “‘ My creditors there all assured me—Oh Frank, how could I forget?” broke off Charley. ‘What an ungrateful fellow Iam! Though, in_ deed, not really ungrateful, but it had temporarily slipped my memory, How good it was of you to settle those two bills for me! I would not write to thank you: I preferred to wait until we met. How did you raise the money?” Frank, whose dinner was finished, had nothing to do but stare at Charles. And he did it. “I don’t know what you are talking of, Charley. What bills have I settled for you?” “ The two wretched bills I had accepted and went about in fear of. You know. Was it not you who paid them?” “ Are they paid ?” “Yes, All paid and done with. It must have been you, Frank. There’s nobody else that it could have been.” “My good lad, I assure you I know nothing whatever about it. Where should I get a hundred pounds from? What could induce you to think it was 1?” Charles told the tale—all he knew of it. They wasted some minutes in conjectures, and then came to the conclusion that it must have been Major Raynor who had paid. That he had become acquainted in some way with Charles’s trouble and had taken the means to relieve it. A lame conclusion, as both felt. For, setting aside the fact that the poor Major was short of money himself, to pay bills for his son stealthily was eminently uncharacteristic of him: he would have been far more likely to let the whole house know of it, and reproach Charley in its hearing. But they were fain to rest in the belief, from sheer lack of any other benefactor to fix upon. Nota soul was there, in the wide world, so far as Charley knew, to come forth in this manner, save his father. “ And what of Eagles’ Nest?” asked Frank, as he passed back into the surgery with Charles, and sent the boy into the kitchen to his dinner. ‘Has George Atkinson taken possession yet?” ‘We have heard nothing of Eagles’ Nest, Frank; we don’t care to hear. Possession? Ox course he has. You may depend upon it he would make an indecent rush into it the very day after we came out of it, the wretch! If he did not the same night.” Frank could not help a smile at the burst of indignation. “ Atkinson _ ought to do something for you, Charley,” he said. “ After turning you comicbooks.com