He dipped his finger into his blacking-pot, and, after cleaning the flagstone on which he knelt with his old hat, proceeded laboriously and slowly to trace an S upon it.
“There,” he cried, when the feat was accomplished, “what do you think of that? That’s a ess for Mr Smith, and a proper bloke he is. He do teach you to-rights, so I let you know, he do.”
“What else does he teach you besides your letters?”
“Oh, about a bloke called Cain as give ’is pal a topper, and—”
He stopped abruptly, as he noticed the smile I could not restrain, and then added, in his offended tone, “I ain’t a-goin’ to tell you. ’Tain’t no concern of yourn.”
I knew Billy well enough by this time to be sure it was no use, after once offending him, trying to cajole him back into a good-humour, so I left him.
So the wretched weeks passed on, and I almost wished myself back at Stonebridge House. There at least I had some society and some friends. Now, during those lonely evenings at Mrs Nash’s I had positively no one—except young Larkins.
That cheery youth was a standing rebuke to me. He had come up to town a year ago, a fresh, innocent boy; and a fresh, innocent boy he remained still. He kept his diary regularly, and wrote home like clock-work, and chirruped over his postage-stamp album, and laughed over his storybooks in a way which it did one’s heart good to see. And yet it made my heart sore. Why should he be so happy and I not? He wasn’t, so I believe, a cleverer boy than I was. Certainly he wasn’t getting on better than I was, for I had now had my third rise in salary, and he still only got what he started with. And he possessed no more friends at Beadle Square than I did. Why ever should he always be so jolly?
I knew, though I was loth to admit it. His conscience was as easy as his spirits. There was no one he had ever wronged, and a great many to whom he had done kind actions. When any one suggested to him to do what he considered wrong, it was the easiest thing in the world for him to refuse flatly, and say boldly why. If everybody else went one way, and he thought it not the right way, it cost him not an effort to turn and go his own way, even if he went it alone. Fellows didn’t like him. They called him a prig—a sanctimonious young puppy. What cared he? If to do what was right manfully in the face of wrong, to persevere in the right in the face of drawbacks, constituted a prig, then Larkins was a prig of the first water, and he didn’t care what fellows thought of him, but chirruped away over his postage-stamp album as before, and read his books, as happy as a king.
It was in this boy’s society that during those wretched weeks I found a painful consolation. He was constantly reminding me of what I was not; but for all that I felt he was a better companion than the heroes with whom I used to associate, and with whom I still occasionally consorted. He knew nothing of my trouble, and thought I was the crossest-grained, slowest growler in existence. But since I chose his company, and seemed glad to have him beside me, he was delighted.