“I know it,” said Reginald; “and that makes it the more vexatious. It's bad enough to think that Clifton should get ahead of him, but one may comfort one's self in the idea of his genius; but when it comes to those donkeyfied ignorami, it is past endurance. He has not tried a bit: I have seen him lately with his book before him, dreaming about some wonderful story of some enchanted ass, or some giantess Mamouka, I suppose; or imagining some new ode to some incomprehensible, un-come-at-able Dulcinea. He is always shutting himself up in his air-castles, and expecting that dry Latin and Greek, and other such miserable facts, will penetrate his atmosphere.”
“Don't be angry with him; something is the matter. You only drive him to herd with those boys,” said Hamilton. “Look there!—there they are!—oh, Reginald! it is not right to leave him with them.”
“Speak to him yourself, Hamilton,” said Reginald, a little sobered. “He will mind you. You have had a great deal to bear with him, but I know you make allowances.”
Hamilton did not reply, but he had determined on making the effort to detach Louis from his evil counsellors, when the latter suddenly left the room with Casson, and did not return till Hamilton had gone into the class-room.
Casson was the only one to whom Louis could relieve his mind on the subject that weighed him down so heavily—and he had, at the time Hamilton was watching him so intently, been whispering some of his fears, only to be laughed at. Suddenly he paused—“Casson, just come with me; I think I recollect—yes, surely—”
He did not wait to conclude his sentence, but, pulling Casson into the hall, sought his great-coat, dived to the bottom of the pocket, and, to his great joy, drew forth Hamilton's poem.
“It's here! it's here! it's here!” he cried. “How could I have put it here without knowing? Oh, my dear Casson, I am so glad!”
“Well, what now?” said Casson, rudely. “What good is it? What do you mean to do with it?”
“Give it back, of course—I think Hamilton will forgive me, and if not, I must give it back to him, and then, perhaps, I shall be happy again; for I have not been happy for a long, long while: I have been very wrong,” he added, in a low, sorrowful tone.
“If ever I saw such a sap in my life,” said Casson; “this comes of all your fine boasting; a nice fellow you are—why you're afraid of your own shadow! Do you know what you'll get if you give it back?”