to me, and a half week's insisting turned it almost into a habit. The fact was I had rather begun to like the fellow.
At last he was well enough to bear the journey home. I remember that last evening, or rather afternoon, we spent together well.
We had been playing draughts by the window, while the sun set in veins of gold and red-hued light, visible to us as we looked out in the pauses of the game. Then it had become too dark for my weak eyes to see well, and we did not care to have the gas lit. We went and sat by the fire, I lying back in the large, cane easy-chair, he beside me bent forward with his hand twirling a little piece of paper in the fingers resting on the wicker arm. We had been talking about different things that had taken place in the school and gradually dropped into silence.
All at once:
'Leicester,' he said, making a movement.
'Well.'
'Why are you such an odd sort of fellow?'
I answered nothing.
'Now don't scowl,' he said. 'You are, you know. . . . Do you know, I think you're very unjust to yourself? almost as unjust to yourself as you are to other people.'
'Yes?' I said.
'You're such a porcupine! You're always putting up your quills at people. Why do you do it?'
'Do I?' I said.
'Now you know quite well you do.'
I answered nothing.
He went on:
'If I were you, I'd give it up: I would indeed! Where's the fun in living day and night with your own sulky self? Don't you ever feel as if you'd give a great deal to laugh and—and amuse yourself (you know what I mean) like other fellows?. . . Instead of brooding over your wrongs in a corner . . . Eh?'
I kept silence.
'Now answer me, do!. . . Come, now don't you often feel as if you'd very much like to have friends like other fellows have?'
