But though they indulged themselves thus freely in shrewd comment when they were alone together and revenged themselves in imagination by such criticism for the slights and indignities put upon them, they could not resent effectively the treatment that Henshaw and, under his leadership, the others administered to them. There were frequent comments on the ignoble character of the fifth form and the scrubby quality of its new kids. Henshaw occasionally expressed the opinion that the school was deteriorating: “There was no such rabble of new kids when we were young.” He went on one day to say, looking meanwhile over David’s head: “Many of them even seem not to have decent clothes. Has any one seen more than two or three new kids with the slightest pretense to gentility?”
David recognized the thrust at him and his clothes and said, “I’ve seen one sixth-former with plenty of pretense.”
It was not a smart retort, but it caused the blood to gather in Henshaw’s forehead, and for the time being it silenced him. But the episode rankled in David’s mind. It was the first intimation he had received that the discrepancies of which he himself had been aware between his dress and that of most of the fellows had been noticed by the others. No one but Henshaw had been unkind enough to comment; even Henshaw’s friends at the table had looked uncomfortable when he made the remark; but David, thinking of the pains and the careful thought and the enforced economy of expenditure with which his mother had assisted him to purchase his clothes, and of the satisfaction that she had taken in their appearance, was wounded not merely in his pride but in his affection. From that moment he hated Henshaw.
It disappointed him to learn, as by observation he soon did learn, that Henshaw, though a sixth-former, was a friend of Wallace’s. They were often together, walking from the dormitory to the chapel or lounging in the dormitory hall. Their intimacy was explained to David when one evening while he was sitting in the hall waiting for the dinner bell Wallace came up and said:
“Hello, Ives; my cousin, Huby Henshaw, tells me that you come from my town. I wish I’d known it earlier.”
He seated himself beside David and continued with cheerful geniality:
“How are you getting on? I know you are a shark in lessons, of course; all right otherwise?”
“Pretty fair, thanks.”
“Funny I didn’t know about you till Huby happened to mention it. Whereabouts do you live—what part of the town? How did you happen to come here?”