Still looking down, Ishmael remained silent and embarrassed.
"Young man, I command you to reply to me," said the master.
"Sir, I thought I had a right to do as I pleased with my own composition," replied Ishmael, lifting his head and looking straight into the face of the questioner, with that modest confidence which sometimes gained the victory over his shyness.
"Unquestionably; but that is not an answer to my question, as to why the substitution was made."
"I wish you would not press the question, sir."
"But I do, Ishmael, and I enjoin you to answer it."
"Then, sir, I suppressed the fair copy, and sent up the rough draft, because I thought there was one who, for his great diligence, had an equal or better right to the watch than I had, and who would be more pained by losing it than I should, and I did not wish to enter into competition with him; for indeed, sir, if I had won the watch from my friend I should have been more pained by his defeat than pleased at my own victory," said Ishmael, his fine face clearing up under the consciousness of probity. (But, reader, mark you this—it was the amiable trait inherited from his father—the pain in giving pain; the pleasure in giving pleasure. But we know that this propensity which had proved so fatal to the father was guided by conscience to all good ends in the son.)
While Ishmael gave this little explanation, the examiners listened, whispered, and nodded to each other with looks of approval.
And Walter came to his friend's side, and affectionately took and pressed his hand, saying:
"I knew it, as soon as I had heard both theses read, and saw that they seemed to make mistakes only in yours. It was very generous in you, Ishmael; but you seemed to leave out of the account the fact that I ought not to have profited by such generosity; and also that if I had lost the prize, and you had won it, my mortification would have been alleviated by the thought that you, the best pupil in the school, and my own chosen friend, had won it."