“Then you ought to be ashamed of yourself,” returned John Bradfield’s loud voice. “I never turned my back on an old friend yet, and I’m not going to begin now. Did you come down here to see me?” “Yes,” answered the other, meekly. “Well, at least, the fact is I heard of you quite by chance, and of how you’d got on, and as I’m down in the world, and I remembered your good heart in the old days, John, I thought I’d just run down and have a peep at you, and then, if I wasn’t wanted, I could come away.” Mr. Bradfield felt a sensation of relief; these words seemed to show him a way out of his difficulty. But the next moment he was undeceived. “If you don’t want me here, John, I’ll just spend a few days in the town here; I daresay I can find lodgings good enough for me easily enough, and all I’ll trouble you for will be my fare back to town, which you’ll not begrudge me, for old acquaintance sake.” Mr. Bradfield inwardly called down upon his old friend’s head something which was not a blessing. He was not going back to town then, but proposed to potter about the place, chattering of course to everyone he met about his old friendship with the rich Mr. Bradfield, and either letting fall or picking up some scrap of information which it would be prejudicial to the rich Mr. Bradfield’s interests to be known. The first suggestion which came into John Bradfield’s mind was bribery, but the next moment’s reflection told him that this was always a dangerous method, for if he were to make Marrable a handsome money present with the condition that he must take himself back to town immediately, that gentleman, little gifted as he was with intellectual brilliancy, could hardly fail to see that his old friend must have some strong motive for wishing to get rid of him. His curiosity once roused, he could hardly fail to find out something which would serve as an excuse for blackmailing in the time to come. The only alternative to this course was, John Bradfield felt, to keep his old chum under his own eye while he remained at Wyngham, so he said: “Come, come; that’s not the way I treat my old friends. Stay and spend Christmas with me, Alf, and when it’s over, and you back to town, where I suppose your heart lies--for you’re a thoroughbred cockney, I know--I’ll see what I can do to set you on your legs, and give you a fresh start in life.” Although Marrable was pleased, he was not overwhelmed with joy and gratitude as John Bradfield had expected. In truth Alfred, on learning by chance of the change in his old friend’s circumstances, had taken it for granted that he would be allowed, nay, invited to share in John Bradfield’s luck, as, in the old days of struggling and hardship, he, then the more prosperous one of the two, had shared what he had with John. An invitation to spend Christmas, even with the promise of help afterwards, was only a small measure of the hospitality he had expected; his answer betrayed his feelings.