"Are you awfully sore, Jack?" I said. "Have one of my pillows."
"Oh no, thanks. But I say, Fred, don't you think it's queer?"
"What, about forgiving your enemies? Well, yes it is, rather. But, I say, it's time I cut back. Good-night, old man."
And I crept back to bed, and lay awake half the night listening to him as he turned from side to side in his sleep, and feeling that everything and everybody was queer, especially my friend Smith.
CHAPTER OF MISFORTUNES BEFEL MY FRIEND SMITH AND ME.
The summer wore on, and with it the gloom of Stonebridge House sunk deeper and deeper into our spirits. After a week or two even the sense of novelty wore off, and we settled down to our drudges' doom as if we were destined all our lives never to see any place outside the Henniker's domain.
If it hadn't been for Smith I don't know how I should have endured it. Not that we ever had much chance of enjoying one another's society. In school it was wholly impossible. In the playground (particularly after our recent escapade), we had very little opportunity given us; and at night, when secretly we did contrive to talk, it was with the constant dread of detection hanging over us.
What concerned me most of all, though, was the bad way in which Smith seemed to get on with every one of his schoolfellows except me, and-- perhaps Flanagan. With the bullies, like Philpot and Rathbone, he was at daggers drawn; towards the others he never took the trouble to conceal his dislike, while with Hawkesbury an explosion seemed always, imminent.
I could not understand why he got on so badly, especially with Hawkesbury, who certainly never made himself disagreeable, but, on the contrary, always appeared desirous to be friendly. I sometimes thought Smith was unreasonable to foster his instinctive dislike as he did.
"Jack," said I one night as he was "paying a call" to my bedside--"Jack, I'm half beginning to think Hawkesbury isn't so bad a fellow after all."
"Oh, I don't know. He's done me one or two good turns lately."
"Well, he helped me in the Latin the other day, of his own accord, and--"
"And he gave me a knife to-day. You know I lost mine, and he said he'd got two."
"I'd like to catch him doing a good turn to me, that's all," said he. "_I'd_ cure him of that!"