He went to the library, where his seventeen-year-old brother Robert was showing off his new rifle to a friend.
“You see——” he was saying, then, catching sight of William’s face round the door, “Oh, get out!”
William got out.
He returned to his mother in the kitchen with a still more jaundiced view of life. It was still raining. His mother was looking at the tradesmen’s books.
“Can I go out?” he said gloomily.
“No, of course not. It’s pouring.”
“I don’t mind rain.”
“Don’t be silly.”
William considered that few boys in the whole world were handicapped by more unsympathetic parents than he.
“Why,” he said pathetically, “have they got friends in an’ me not?”