"Oh, I hope she won't," said Drusie, in real distress; "and he has been so nice about it. You heard him offering to stay, Jim?"
"Yes," said Jim, "I heard him, and I thought you were very wise not to accept. He would have been sorry long before the fight was over."
Meanwhile Hal, feeling very well pleased with himself, hurried on, and reached the cricket field just as a distant church clock was striking nine.
Dodds had not yet arrived, and Hal thought with pleasure of the promise Dodds had given him that he should go in first. And he meant to stay in too; Dodds should not get him out so easily as he imagined. He only hoped that Dodds would not get tired of bowling to him, and turn him out willy nilly.
That was the worst, he reflected, of playing with a boy so much older than himself. At school Dodds was an immensely popular fellow, and a new and comparatively small boy, as Hal was, would have been very much snubbed if he had ventured to say a word against him. But here Hal could not help seeing that Dodds was rather inclined to be selfish. And Hal was quick not only to see but to resent selfishness in other people.
He had plenty of time to think over the faults in the character of his friend, for half-past nine and then ten struck, and still he had not put in an appearance. Hal began to get impatient, for the sun was gradually getting hotter, and soon it would be too warm to play with any comfort. It really was too bad of Dodds to treat him so.
He wondered what the others were doing, and whether they had begun their fight. If it had not been for Dodds, he might have been with them now, instead of dawdling away the whole of the morning doing nothing.
For another half-hour Hal waited, and at the end of that time he came to the conclusion that Dodds did not intend to turn up at all.
"He is selfish," he thought indignantly. "Here have I spoiled the whole of my birthday morning waiting for him. I might have been defending the fort all this time and enjoying myself."
Here his conscience whispered that he might also have been helping his twin sister to enjoy her birthday; and when he remembered how bravely she had concealed her own disappointment, and how unselfishly she had told him to go and spend his birthday in the manner that pleased him best, he began to see how very selfishly he had behaved.