“Pretty decent of him,” he says, discussing the Bruiser Belt and the score against Juddy’s.
“I didn’t think he had it in him,” is even stronger about the sea-trout Neil had landed and been so proud of that he would not lie prone till it was put in a basin by his bedside. He had then slept with one arm over the basin.
Strongest of all is to say that Neil was mad, at present a term not only of approval but even of endearment at the only school that counts (Tintinnabulum speaking). Sometimes we talk of the dark period when Neil, weeping over his first Latin grammar, used to put a merry tune on the gramophone to accompany his woe. He continued to weep as he studied, but always rose at the right time to change the tune. This is a heart-breaker of a memory to me, and Tintinnabulum knows it and puts his hand deliciously on my shoulder (that kindest gesture of man to man).
“The gander must have been mad, quite mad,” he says hurriedly.
How Neil would like to hear Tintinnabulum saying these nice things about him.
Perhaps we all have a Neil. Have you ever wakened suddenly in the night, certain that you heard a bell ring as it once rang or a knocking on your door as only one could knock or a voice of long ago, quite close? Sometimes you rise and wander the house; more often, after waiting alert for a repetition of the sound, you decide that you have been dreaming or that it was the creaking of a window or a board. But I daresay it was none of these things. I daresay it was your Neil.
Perhaps you have become something quite different from what he meant to be. Perhaps he wants to get into the house, not to gaze proudly at you but to strike you.
Some drop their Neil deliberately and can recall clearly the day of the great decision, but most are unaware that he has gone. For instance, it may have been Neil who married the lady and you who gradually took his place, so like him in appearance that she is as deceived as you. Or it may be that she has found you out and knows who it is that is knocking on the door trying to get back to her. You might be scared if you knew that though she is at this moment attending to your wants with a smile for you on her face, her passionate wish is to be done with you. On the other hand, you may be the better fellow of the two. Let us decide that this is how it is.
The last week of the holidays was darkened for Tintinnabulum and W. W. by the shadow of a letter demanded of them by their tutor. It had to be on one of three subjects: