“You’d better. You tell him just how it all happened, and I’ll write a note, too, and you can put it in your letter. You see, Collins is sure to write to him and report the matter, and he will think it’s much worse than it is if you don’t explain. Now, come on and let’s eat.”
At dinner Dan promised Alf to go over to the latter’s room later in the evening.
“I guess I’ll bring Gerald along, if you don’t mind,” he said. “He’s feeling rather down in the mouth.”
“Of course, bring him along,” answered Alf.
But when the time came Gerald refused to go.
“I don’t care to go where I’m not wanted,” he declared, and all of Dan’s persuasion failed to move him. In the end Dan went alone, feeling rather guilty at leaving Gerald there in the dumps.
Events proved that Dan would have done better to have remained at home that evening, for Gerald was in a bitter mood. He really believed that he had been treated unjustly by the Faculty in the persons of Mr. McIntyre and Mr. Collins, and was jealous of Alf and Tom. It seemed to him to-night that nothing but trouble had fallen to his lot since his advent at Yardley. The fellows had shown that he wasn’t wanted, he had been insulted by Thompson and Mr. McIntyre, and, worst blow of all, Dan was tired of him and spent more of his time at Number 7 Dudley than he did in his own room. Gerald gloomed for a while, and then took paper and pen and tried to write his mid-week letter to his father in England. But the sentences wouldn’t shape themselves, and he soon gave up the effort. He tried to study, but could make nothing of that, either. So he started to think things over again, and the more he thought the worse everything appeared to him, until, at last, with an exclamation of defiance, he strode to his closet and pulled down his suit-case from the shelf. For the next ten minutes he was busy packing such of his things as he could take from his chiffonier without endangering his secret. His brushes and comb, and things of that sort, he would have to leave until morning, but it wouldn’t take a moment to drop them in. His preparations completed, he put the bag back on the shelf and got ready for bed, cheerful and excited. When Dan returned, just before ten, Gerald was in bed, and apparently fast asleep.