“I’m so sorry, Arthur! I wish I was dead! Why don’t you lick me? Won’t you please—lick me?”
“Oh, don’t be a fool,” growled the other. “No, I won’t lick you; I don’t want to touch you, you little beast!”
“I didn’t mean to do it,” Harry sobbed, “honest I didn’t! I—I was just crazy mad with you, and—and before I knew it——”
“All right. Cut out the weeps,” answered Arthur, wearily. “I dare say you couldn’t help it. You’re just naturally a sneak, I suppose.”
“I’m not!” cried Harry, raising a tear-blurred face. “I wouldn’t have done it if I’d realized——”
“Oh, you realized all right.”
“I didn’t think—you’d have to stop track work,” wailed Harry. “And now you won’t ever like me any more; you’ll hate me. I—I’m going to get my mother to take me away from here.”
“Not a bad idea,” replied Arthur, indifferently, although the boy’s remorse seemed so genuine and his sorrow so great that he could not but feel a little less resentful than before. Harry began feeling in his pockets for his handkerchief. It had fallen under the table, and Arthur rescued it and tossed it to him. Harry dried some of the tears, but more kept coming. Arthur finished his letter, folded it and put it into its envelope. Harry eyed the missive with quivering lips.