Page:Stevenson - The Wrecker (1892).djvu/299

Rh the office, in a dusty pen, Jim sat alone before a table. A wretched change had overtaken him in clothes, body, and bearing; he looked sick and shabby; he who had once rejoiced in his day's employment, like a horse among pastures, now sat staring on a column of accounts, idly chewing a pen, at times heavily sighing, the picture of inefficiency and inattention. He was sunk deep in a painful reverie; he neither saw nor heard me; and I stood and watched him unobserved. I had a sudden vain relenting. Repentance bludgeoned me. As I had predicted to Nares, I stood and kicked myself. Here was I come home again, my honour saved; there was my friend in want of rest, nursing, and a generous diet; and I asked myself with Falstaff, “What is in that word honour? what is that honour?” and, like Falstaff, I told myself that it was air.

“Jim!” said I.

“Loudon!” he gasped, and jumped from his chair and stood shaking.

The next moment I was over the barrier, and we were hand in hand.

“My poor old man!” I cried.

“Thank God, you're home at last!” he gulped, and kept patting my shoulder with his hand.

“I've no good news for you, Jim!” said I.

“You've come—that's the good news that I want,” he replied. “Oh, how I've longed for you, Loudon!”

“I couldn't do what you wrote me,” I said, lowering my voice. “The creditors have it all. I couldn't do it.”

“S-s-h!” returned Jim. “I was crazy when wrote. I could never have looked Mamie in the face if we had done it. Oh, Loudon, what a gift that woman is? You think you know something of life: you just don't know anything. It's the goodness of the woman, it's a revelation!”