This interview made the evening bearable for John; and it was all the more bearable to him, though it is strange to say so, because Fred Huntley had returned, and sat next him at dinner. He had hated Fred for some days, and was not yet much inclined towards him; but still there was a pleasure in being able to talk freely to some one, and to feel himself, to some extent at least, comprehended, position and all. He was very dry and stiff to Huntley at first, but by degrees the ice broke. “I have never seen you since that night,” said Fred. “My heart has smote me since for the way in which I left you, lying on those door-steps. In that excitement one forgets everything. But you bear considerable marks of it, I see.” “Nothing to signify,” said John; and Fred gave him a nod, and began to eat his soup with an indifference which was balm to the other’s excited feelings. Finding thus that no gratitude was claimed of him, John grew generous. “I hear it was you who dragged me out; and I have never had a chance of thanking you,” he said. “Thanking me--what for? I don’t remember dragging any one out,” said Fred. “It was very hot work. I did not rush into the thick of it, like you, to do any good; but I daresay I could give the best description of it. Have they found out how much damage was done?--but I suppose the bank is still going on all the same.” “Banks cannot stop,” said John, “unless things are going very badly with them indeed.” “That comes of going in for a special study,” said Huntley; “you always did know all about political economy, didn’t you? No, it wasn’t you, it was Sutherland--never mind; if you have not studied it theoretically, you have practically. I often think if I had gone in for business it would have been better for me on the whole.” “You have less occasion to say so than most men,” said John. “Because we are well off?--or because I have got my fellowship, and that sort of thing? I don’t know that it matters much. A man has to work--or else,” said Fred, with a sigh, swallowing something more than that _entrée_, “he drifts somehow into mischief whether he will or no.”