‘What worse?’
‘The being alone.’
‘Well, anyhow,’ said Caroline, coming round to sit on the other side of him, ‘you’re not alone now. What’s up? Who is he?’
‘He’s a schoolmaster. I should have thought you could have seen that.’
‘We thought he was like Mr. Murdstone.’
‘He is,’ said the strange boy; ‘exactly.’
‘Oh,’ said Charlotte joyously, ‘then you’ve read David. I say!’
They were all delighted. There is no bond like the bond of having read and liked the same books. A tide of friendliness swept over the party, and when they found that he had also read Alice in Wonderland, Wild Animals I Have Known, and Hereward the Wake, as well as E. Nesbit’s stories for children in the Strand Magazine, they all felt that they had been friends for years.
‘But tell us all about it, quick, before he comes back,’ urged Charles. ‘Perhaps we could help you—bring you jam tarts and apples with a rope ladder or something. We are yours to the death—you won’t forget that, will you? And what’s your name? And where do you live? And where are you going? Tell us all about it, quick!’ he urged.
Then out it all came. The strange boy’s name was Rupert Wix, and he was at a school—not half bad the school was—and old Filon—he was the classical chap—was going to take Rupert and two other chaps to Wales for the holidays—and now the other chaps had got measles, and so had old Filon. And old Mug’s brother—his name wasn’t really Mug, of course, but Macpherson, and the brother was the Rev. William Macpherson—yes, that was him, the Murdstone chap—he was going to take Rupert to his beastly school in the country.