“I couldn’t help laughing, Jack,” I said, holding out my hand. “I did not mean to ridicule you.”
He gave my hand quite an angry slap and turned away, but only to come back directly.
“Here, I say; I beg your pardon, Joe Carstairs,” he said, holding out his hand, which I shook heartily. “I wish I hadn’t got such a beastly bad temper. I do try not to show it, but it makes me wild when people laugh at me.”
“Well, I won’t laugh at you any more, Jack,” I said earnestly.
“No, don’t; there’s a good chap,” he said, with the tears in his eyes. “It’s partly why I came away from home, you know. I wanted to come and find the professor, of course, and I like coming for the change; but it’s principally that.”
“Principally that!” I said. “I don’t understand you, Jack.”
“Why, I mean about being laughed at! Everybody has always been laughing at me, because I grew so thin and long and weak-looking, and I got tired of it at last, and was precious glad to come out to New Guinea to stop till I had grown thicker. For I said to myself, I don’t s’pose the savage chaps will laugh at me, and if they do I can drop on ’em and they won’t do it again.”
“It must have been unpleasant, Jack,” I said.
“It’s horrid, old fellow,” he said confidentially; “and all the more because you are obliged to laugh at it all when you feel as if you’d like to double ’em up and jump on ’em.”
“Well, there, Jack; I give you my word I won’t laugh at you again.”