“Oh, shut up!” growled Wayne. Don smiled silently, as though at an amusing thought, and Wayne observed him with rather an embarrassed expression. Finally he broke the silence.
“Stop grinning there like a chloroformed catfish, Don! I suppose I was rather a silly ass when I got here. But, you see, I hadn’t been away from our little old village very much and didn’t know a great deal about boarding schools.” He paused and looked reminiscently into the flames. “You and Dave and Paddy were awfully nice to me. I must have seemed a powerful sulky brute!”
“Well, you were a bit exasperating at first with your high and mighty views of the school and the fellows and the way in which we conducted things here at Hillton. But we all kind of took to you the first day; perhaps that was the reason. I’ll never forget the afternoon you walked in here, plumped your valise down, and asked why the nigger hadn’t lighted the fire!”
“But it was chilly,” objected Wayne.
“And when I explained very respectfully that you would be obliged to share the study with me, you looked me over very condescendingly and remarked: ‘Well, I reckon it’s the rule; but seems to me they might have told me that.’”
“Did I say that?” asked Wayne meekly.
“Every word. And I don’t mind acknowledging now that I was sorely tempted to knock your head against the wall.”
“Well, I’m glad you didn’t. Because if you had we wouldn’t have been chums. But I wonder why you didn’t kick and get another roommate?”
“That’s the funny part of it, Wayne. I suppose I must have liked you even then. By the way, do you remember how mad you got one day when Paddy told you that you spoke with a ‘refined negro dialect’?”
“Yes,” answered Wayne, “I remember. Well, I’m glad I’ve learned a little sense since then. I felt powerful mean and homesick the first few weeks I was here; and you and Paddy and Dave were awfully decent to me. It isn’t the thing that a fellow talks about, of course, and I hate to have any one get ‘sloppy,’ but, honest, Don, I won’t forget it, you know.”