“Will you?” cried Jack, with his face beaming, and looking quite pleasant. “Well, that is kind of you. If the doctor wouldn’t laugh either I should be as happy as the day’s long.”
“I’ll ask him not to,” I said.
“Oh, no; don’t do that!” he cried quickly then; “he’d leave off laughing at me just out of pity, and I’d rather he laughed at me than pitied me, you know. Don’t ask him not.”
“All right!” I said. “I will not.”
“I’d rather he laughed at me,” said Jack again thoughtfully; “for I like the doctor; he’s such a brave chap. I say, Joe Carstairs, I wish I could grow into a big broad-chested brave chap with a great beard, like the doctor.”
“So you will some day.”
“Tchah!” he cried impatiently. “Look there—there’s long thin arms! There’s a pair of legs! And see what a body I’ve got. I ain’t got no looking-glass here, but last time I looked at myself my head and face looked like a small knob on the top of a thin pump.”
“You let yourself alone, and don’t grumble at your shape,” I said sturdily, and to tell the truth rather surprising myself, for I had no idea that I was such a philosopher. “Your legs are right enough. They only want flesh and muscle, and it’s the same with your arms. Wait a bit and it will all come, just as beards do when people grow to be men.”
“I sha’n’t never have any beard,” said Jack, dolefully; “my face is as smooth as a girl’s!”
“I daresay the doctor was only a little smooth soft baby once,” I said; “and now see what he is.”