David put down the brush on the washing-stand.
"He can buy something useful," I went on, "with the money he can get for it. Anyway, he will get something for it."
I paused.
"Well," David said at last, "that's a good thing," and he went off to the schoolroom. I followed him.
"And if they ask you what you have done with it?" he said, turning to me.
"I shall tell them I've lost it," I answered carelessly.
No more was said about the watch between us that day; but I had the feeling that David not only approved of what I had done but ... was to some extent surprised by it. He really was!
V
Two days more passed. It happened that no one in the house thought of the watch. My father was taken up with a very serious unpleasantness with one of his clients; he had no attention to spare for me or my watch. I, on the other hand, thought of it without ceasing! Even the approval ... the presumed approval of David did not quite comfort me. He did not show it in any special way: the only thing he said, and that casually, was that he hadn't expected such recklessness of me. Certainly I was a loser by my sacrifice: it was not counter-balanced by the gratification afforded me by my vanity.
And what is more, as ill-luck would have it, another schoolfellow of ours, the son of the town doctor, must needs turn up and begin boasting of a new watch, a present from his grandmother, and not even a silver, but a pinch-back one....