One of
these was the house of Colette; and at his door our ill-
starred John was presently beating for admittance. In an
evil hour he satisfied the jealous inquiries of the
contraband hotel-keeper; in an evil hour he penetrated into
the somewhat unsavoury interior. Alan, to be sure, was
there, seated in a room lighted by noisy gas-jets, beside a
dirty table-cloth, engaged on a coarse meal, and in the
company of several tipsy members of the junior bar. But Alan
was not sober; he had lost a thousand pounds upon a horse-
race, had received the news at dinner-time, and was now, in
default of any possible means of extrication, drowning the
memory of his predicament. He to help John! The thing was
impossible; he couldn't help himself.
'If you have a beast of a father,' said he, 'I can tell you I
have a brute of a trustee.'
'I'm not going to hear my father called a beast,' said John
with a beating heart, feeling that he risked the last sound
rivet of the chain that bound him to life.
But Alan was quite good-natured.
'All right, old fellow,' said he. 'Mos' respec'able man your
father.' And he introduced his friend to his companions as
'old Nicholson the what-d'ye-call-um's son.'
John sat in dumb agony. Colette's foul walls and maculate
table-linen, and even down to Colette's villainous casters,
seemed like objects in a nightmare.
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