“And no need to do those lines,” said Mr. Courtnay.
“Thank you,” said William. “Good-night.”
He walked briskly down the road. He’d enjoyed the evening. Its only drawback was that he could never tell anyone about it. For William, with all his faults, was a sportsman.
But he’d scored! He’d scored! He’d scored!
And Old Stinks was coming back next week!
Unable to restrain his feelings, William turned head over heels in the road.
CHAPTER XIII
WILLIAM AND UNCLE GEORGE
It was William who bought the horn-rimmed spectacles. He bought them for sixpence from a boy who had bought them for a shilling from a boy to whose dead aunt’s cousin’s grandfather they had belonged.
William was intensely proud of them. He wore them in school all the morning. They made everything look vague and blurred, but he bore that inconvenience gladly for the sake of the prestige they lent him.