“I put out your clothes and boots for you, and you put ’em on—just what I liked to put for you. You used to get up when I called you, and you’d have eat anything that was put before you, and said nothing. While now you’re getting particular about your food even, and you order me about—and I won’t say bully me, because it ain’t quite true; but you’ve said lots o’ sharp things to me, and I feel ’mazed like sometimes to hear you, for it don’t sound like you at all. It’s just as if you’d got yourself changed, sir.”

“Perhaps I have, Ned, for I feel changed,” said the boy.

“Yes, sir, you are changed a lot, and I hope it’s right.”

“I hope so, Ned,” said Jack, and he walked away.

“Don’t even use his legs like he did a month ago. I can’t quite understand it, but it ain’t my business. Couldn’t have been right for him to be always sitting over a book, and when he got up, looking as if he was still all among the Romans and Greek ’uns. But it seems so sudden like, and as if he might go back again. But I s’pose we shall see.”


Chapter Twelve.

A finny prize.