You must give him the money back, Wallop." Wallop grinned delightedly.
"Oh, quite so.

It's rather likely, when I've been waiting for my money the best part of a year, I should decline to receive it when I've got the chance! No, my boy, you can settle with Hawkesbury now.

You owe him the thirty bob, not me!" What was I to do?
I demanded an explanation of Hawkesbury as soon as he appeared.
"Wallop tells me you've paid him the thirty shillings I owed him," said I.
"Oh, he shouldn't have told you," said Hawkesbury, with the meek air of a benevolent man who doesn't like to hear his own good deeds talked about.
"I wish you hadn't done it," said I.
"Oh, you mustn't think of it," said he, blandly.

"It was only because I heard him threaten to get you into trouble if you didn't pay him, and I should have been so sorry if that had happened." "Thank you, but really I prefer to pay my own debts!" He laughed as if it was a joke.
"I'm sure you do; but as I knew you couldn't do it, I thought it would be a relief to you if I did it for you." Could he be in earnest?
He talked as if I ought to be grateful to him instead of in a rage, as I was.

Certainly it was a queer position to be in--storming at a fellow who has just saved you from debt, perhaps disgrace, possibly ruin, I _couldn't_ make out what to think of it.
"I daresay you thought you were doing me a good turn," I said as civilly as I could, "but as it happens I wish you had let the thing alone." He sighed forgivingly and went to his desk.
The moment Jack and I got outside at dinner-time I unburdened my woes to him.
He was in as great if not a greater commotion than I was.
"What does he mean by it ?" he exclaimed.