I would fain have been spared that ceremony! There arrived, as I was starting out, a hurried line from Mrs Shield, announcing that Jack was "much the same," which of course meant he was still very ill.
Poor Jack! I had been so taken up with my own fancied ailment that I had scarcely thought of him.

As it was I could hardly realise that he was so very ill.
Little had we imagined that evening when he caught up the half-murdered urchin in his arms and carried him to our lodgings what the result of that act would be to one of us! And yet, if it were to do again, I fancied my friend Smith would do it again, whatever it cost.

But to think of his being so ill, possibly losing his life, all for a graceless young vagabond who-- "Clean 'e boots, do y' hear, clean 'e boots, sir ?" Looking towards the sound, I saw the very object of my thoughts in front of me.

He was clad in a tattered old tail coat, and trousers twice the size of his little legs.

His head and feet were bare, and there seemed little enough semblance of a shirt.