Frank turned a swift face upon him.
"If you do," he said, with sudden fierce gravity, "I'll never speak to you again. I mean it. It's my affair, and I shall run it my own way."
"But—"
"I mean it. Now! give me your word of honor—"
"I—"
"Your word of honor, this instant, or get out of my room!"
There was a pause. Then:
"All right," said Jack.
Then there fell a silence once more.
(II)
The news began to be rumored about, soon after the auction that Frank held of his effects a couple of days later. He carried out the scene admirably, entirely unassisted, even by Jack.
First, there appeared suddenly all over Cambridge, the evening before the sale, just as the crowds of undergraduates and female relations began to circulate about after tea and iced strawberries, a quantity of sandwich-men, bearing the following announcement, back and front:
TRINITY COLLEGE, CAMBRIDGE. The Hon. Frank Guiseley
has pleasure in announcing that on
June 7th (Saturday)
at half-past ten a.m. precisely
in Rooms 1, Letter J, Great Court, Trinity College,
he will positively offer for
SALE BY AUCTION
The household effects, furniture, books, etc., of the Hon. Frank Guiseley, including—
A piano by Broadwood (slightly out of tune); a magnificent suite of drawing-room furniture, upholstered in damask, the sofa only slightly stained with tea; one oak table and another; a bed; a chest of drawers (imitation walnut, and not a very good imitation); a mahogany glass-fronted bookcase, containing a set of suggestive-looking volumes bound in faint colors, with white labels; four oriental mats; a portrait of a gentleman (warranted a perfectly respectable ancestor); dining-room suite (odd chairs); numerous engravings of places of interest and noblemen's seats; a Silver Cigarette-box and fifteen Cigarettes in it (Melachrino and Mixed American); a cuckoo-clock (without cuckoo); five walking-sticks; numerous suits of clothes (one lot suitable for Charitable Purposes); some books—all very curious indeed—comprising the works of an Eminent Cambridge Professor, and other scholastic luminaries, as well as many other articles.
At Half-past Ten a.m. Precisely
All friends, and strangers, cordially invited.
No Reserve Price.
It served its purpose admirably, for by soon after ten o'clock quite a considerable crowd had begun to assemble; and it was only after a very serious conversation with the Dean that the sale was allowed to proceed. But it proceeded, with the distinct understanding that a college porter be present; that no riotous behavior should be allowed; that the sale was a genuine one, and that Mr. Guiseley would call upon the Dean with further explanations before leaving Cambridge.
The scene itself was most impressive.
Frank, in a structure resembling an auctioneer's box, erected on the hearth-rug, presided, with extraordinary gravity, hammer in hand, robed in a bachelor's gown and hood. Beneath him the room seethed with the company, male and female, all in an excellent humor, and quite tolerable prices were obtained. No public explanations were given of the need for the sale, and Jack, in the deepest dismay, looked in again that afternoon, about lunch-time, to find the room completely stripped, and Frank, very cheerful, still in his hood and gown, smoking a cigarette in the window-seat.
"Come in," he said. "And kindly ask me to lunch. The last porter's just gone."
Jack looked at him.
He seemed amazingly genial and natural, though just a little flushed, and such an air of drama as there was about him was obviously deliberate.
"Very well; come to lunch," said Jack. "Where are you going to dine and sleep?"
"I'm dining in hall, and I'm sleeping in a hammock. Go and look at my bedroom."
Jack went across the bare floor and looked in. A hammock was slung across from a couple of pegs, and there lay a small carpet-bag beneath it. A basin on an upturned box and a bath completed the furniture.
"You mad ass!" said Jack. "And is that all you have left?"
"Certainly. I'm going to leave the clothes I've got on to you, and you can fetch the hammock when I've gone."
"When do you start?"
"Mr. Guiseley will have his last interview and obtain his exeat from the Dean at half-past six this evening. He proposes to leave Cambridge in the early hours of to-morrow morning."
"You don't mean that!"
"Certainly I do."
"What are you going to wear?"
Frank extended two flanneled legs, ending in solid boots.
"These—a flannel shirt, no tie, a cap, a gray jacket."
Jack stood again in silence, looking at him.
"How much money did your sale make?"
"That's immaterial. Besides, I forget. The important fact is that when I've paid all my bills I shall have thirteen pounds eleven shillings and eightpence."
"What?"
"Thirteen pounds eleven shillings and eightpence."
Jack burst into a mirthless laugh.
"Well, come along to lunch," he said.
It seemed to Jack that he moved in a dreary kind of dream that afternoon as he went about with Frank from shop to shop, paying bills. Frank's trouser-pockets bulged and jingled a good deal as they started—he had drawn all his remaining money in gold from the bank—and they bulged and jingled considerably less as the two returned to tea in Jesus Lane. There, on the table, he spread out the coins. He had bought some tobacco, and two or three other things that afternoon, and the total amounted now but to twelve pounds nineteen shillings and fourpence.
"Call it thirteen pounds," said Frank. "There's many a poor man—"
"Don't be a damned fool!" said Jack.
"I'm being simply prudent," said Frank. "A contented heart—"
Jack thrust a cup of tea and the buttered buns before him.
These two were as nearly brothers as possible, in everything but blood. Their homes lay within ten miles of one another. They had gone to a private school together, to Eton, and to Trinity. They had ridden together in the holidays, shot, dawdled, bathed, skated, and all the rest. They were considerably more brothers to one another than were Frank and Archie, his actual elder brother, known to the world as Viscount Merefield. Jack did not particularly approve of Archie; he thought him a pompous ass, and occasionally said so.
For Frank he had quite an extraordinary affection, though he would not have expressed it so, to himself, for all the world, and a very real admiration of a quite indefinable kind. It was impossible to say why he admired him. Frank did nothing very well, but everything rather well; he played Rugby football just not well enough to represent his college; he had been in the Lower Boats at Eton, and the Lent Boat of his first year at Cambridge; then he had given up rowing and played lawn-tennis in the summer and fives in the Lent Term just well enough to make a brisk and interesting game. He was not at all learned; he had reached the First Hundred at Eton, and had read Law at Cambridge—that convenient branch of study which for the most part fills the vacuum for intelligent persons who have no particular