CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
HOW I EXPERIENCED SOME OF THE DOWNS AND UPS OF FORTUNE.
My reader will hardly accuse me of painting myself in too flattering colours.

I only wish I could promise him that the record of my folly should end here.

But, alas! if he has patience to read my story to the end he will find that Frederick Batchelor's folly was too inveterate to be chased away by two black eyes and a piece of bad news.
But for the time being I was fairly cowed.

As I lay awake that next morning, after a night of feverish tossing and dreaming, I could think of nothing but my friend Smith--ill, perhaps dying, in the hospital at Packworth.

I could do nothing to help him; I might not even go near him.