And without waiting for Paul to answer, Waterman dropped down, with his hands still in his pockets, beside him on the bed.
"It was very good of you to give me a helping hand just now, Waterman."
"Oh, humbug! I've got a wretched sort of memory. Fact is, it's too great a fag trying to recollect half the things crammed into you at school, but I seem to have a better memory than most fellows for some things. And there's one thing I can't forget—I can't forget you coming across the ground with that little chap, so like a drowned rat, in your arms. I shall have to be blind, deaf, and silly before I forget it."
Waterman spoke in his usual drawling tone, but its underlying note of earnestness was quite unusual. Strange that Paul, too, had just been thinking of Hibbert, but in a scene far different from that to which Waterman had referred. God had been very good to him after all. He had been thinking how utterly lonely he was, and yet a friend—true, a somewhat indolent one—had come to him in his hour of adversity.
"And look here, Percival," went on Waterman, "there's something else I remember. I don't know why, you know, but I do."
"What's that? Seems to me your memory's improving," said Paul.
"Oh, my memory's fairly good when it's not grubbing about amongst Latin roots, or making a fellow bald-headed worrying over problems invented by a fiend calling himself Euclid ever so many years ago. Why the undertakers couldn't have buried them along with old Euclid, or stowed them away with his mummy, is one of those things I could never understand. Then if people wanted to dig them up again, they'd have been in their right place—in the mummy department of the British Museum. Where was I? Oh, on memory. Yes, there's one thing I remember, in spite of the Latin roots and weary old Euclid. I recollect what you told me on that day when you surprised every one by turning tail at the sand-pits. I've kept it to myself all this time. Is it necessary to keep it a secret any longer?"
"Yes, Waterman," answered Paul firmly.
"Why? Let me set you right with the Form? It'll be an awful fag, I know. Still, the vac's coming on, and one can have a good long rest after one's pulled through."
"No, Waterman," said Paul, shaking his head; "I'm not going to curry favour that way. You've been a friend to me—a friend where I least expected to find one. Bear with me a little longer."