Mr. George slowly shook his head, staring at the keen, beautiful, but reluctant boy.
"I suppose that's what we've come to," said Rackett.
"Didn't you learn me!" cried Lennie defiantly. And striking a little attitude, like a naive earnest actor, he repeated:
"'Here rests, his head upon the lap of earth,
A youth of fortune and to fame unknown.
Fair science frowned not on his humble birth,
And melancholy marked him for her own.
"'Large was his bounty, and his soul sincere,
Heaven did a recompense as largely send.
He gave to misery all he had, a tear,
He gained from heaven, 'twas all he wished, a friend."
"There," he continued. "That's me! An' I've got a friend already."
"You're a little fool," said Mr. George. "Much mark of melancholy there is on you! And do you think misery is going to thank you for your idiotic tear? As for your friend, he's going away. And you're a fool, putting up a headstone to yourself while you're alive still. Damn you, you little fool, and be damned to you."
Mr. George was really cross. He flounced his spectacles off his nose. Len was frightened. Then he said, rather waveringly, turning to his mother:
"We're all right, Ma, ain't we?"
Mrs. Ellis looked at him with her subtlest, tenderest smile. And in Lennie's eyes burned a light of youthful indignation against these old men.