Chapter Seventeen.
Moral Surgery.
“How easy it is to get into trouble!” said Steve; “and what a watch one has to keep over one’s self! There I was, as happy and contented as could be, only a little while ago, and now everything’s miserable. I wouldn’t care if the captain had not spoken to me like that.”
“Go and tell him you’re sorry,” said the doctor.
“I can’t.”
“But you must, my lad. You were in the wrong, weren’t you?”
“I don’t think so. It was all a bit of fun. I never expected that the boy would turn like that.”
“Well, wasn’t it foolish of you to go making a playmate of such a rough, common lad? I’m not snobbish, Steve, but I think people get on better who make friends in their own class; and if your poor father could have seen you fighting a—”