“You’re afraid!”
At another time Wolcott might have felt the sting of this taunt. The Eastham ride, however, which had not presented Marchmont exactly in the light of a hero, had considerably lessened the spell of superior cleverness and experience which the idealized boy cast over his follower. Marchmont’s merits were no less commendable in Wolcott’s eyes; but his faults were no longer wholly overlooked.
“Yes, I am, if that will please you. There are some things it’s well to be afraid of.”
“What a good boy!” said Marchmont, covering his sneer with a smile. “You must be the delight of your mother’s heart! I really thought you had more spirit in you.”
But Lindsay to-night was beyond the reach of Marchmont’s wiles. “Go to bed and take a long snooze,” he said, laughing; “it will do you lots more good than trying to think of some way of getting into trouble.”
As he passed Salter’s room on the way down, Salter was just coming out.
“Going over to the Yard?” asked Wolcott.
“Yee-up,” replied Salter. He was a queer person, this Salter, a little of a calf, a little of a sissy, a great deal of a scholar,—in fact, one of the best in the class,—yet a favorite with no one. He was under medium size, fat and clumsy in build, with girlish movements, a manner shy even to timidity, and modesty that was a fault. His fellows took him at his own estimate. The only occasions on which his society seemed really desired were just before recitation, when one boy would jostle him into a corner and demand, “Here, Sal, what’s the answer to 38?” Or another would pluck him roughly by the shoulder and insist on being told immediately how to “do these two lines at the bottom of the page.” These attentions were due, as Salter was of course aware, not to friendship but to necessity. The very persons whom he helped, nicknamed him “Sal” and “Marm,” called him a grind, made him the butt of jokes, and even used him as an example of “the kind of fellow who has no school spirit, never does anything for the school.” If the words escaped Salter’s ears, the general attitude told the story just as plainly. Salter was not happy in his school life.
“I’ve seen your private way to Marchmont’s room,” remarked Lindsay, as they walked down the street.
“It’s not mine!” returned Salter, with an emphasis quite unnatural to him. “If it were, I’d nail it up so tight it never could be opened again.”