Chapter II.
THE FIGHT.
THE afternoon session of Mr. Morton’s Select School was but little more promising of revelations about the new boy than the morning had been. Most of the boys returned earlier than usual from their respective dinners, and either hung about the school-room, staring at their new companion, or waited at the foot of the stairs for him to come down. The attentions of the first-named division soon became so distasteful to the new-comer that he left the room abruptly, and went down the stairway two steps at a time. At the door he found little Benny Mallow looking up admiringly, and determining to practice that particular method of coming down-stairs the first Saturday that he could creep unnoticed through a school-room window. But Benny was not one of those foolish boys who forget the present while planning about the future. Paul Grayson had barely reached the bottom step when little Benny looked innocently up into his face, and remarked, “Say!”
“Well?” Paul answered.
“You’re the biggest boy in school,” continued Benny. “I noticed it when you stood beside Appleby.”
Grayson looked as if he did not exactly see that the matter was worthy of special remark.
“I,” said Benny, “am the smallest boy—I am, really. If you don’t believe it, look at the other boys. I’ll just run down the steps, and stand beside some of them.”
“Don’t take that trouble,” said Grayson, pleasantly. “But what is there remarkable about my height and your shortness?”
“Oh, nothing,” said Benny, looking down with some embarrassment, and then looking up again—“only I thought maybe ’twas a good reason why we should be friends.”
“Why, so it is, little fellow,” said Grayson. “I was very stupid not to understand that without being told.”