All signs of shame and penitence disappeared as he stepped with a swagger up to Charlie and exclaimed,-- "What business have you to attack my friends?
Get out yourself!" "Bravo, Tom, old man," cried the delighted Gus.

"Do you hear, young prig?
walk off, you're not wanted here." Charlie stood for one moment stunned and irresolute.

Had there been in Tom's face the faintest glimmer of regret, or the faintest trace of the old affection, he would have stayed and braved all consequences.

But there was neither.

The spell that bound Tom Drift, his fear of being thought a milksop, had changed him utterly, and as Charlie's eyes turned with pleading look to his they met only with menace and confusion.
"Go!" repeated Tom, driven nearly wild by the mocking laugh in which Mortimer and his two companions joined.
This, then, was the end of their friendship--so full of hope on one side, so full of promise on the other.
It was a strange moment in the lives of those two.