As I sat at supper before a long table decorated with plates of bread-and-butter and cheese I saw my friend sitting at the other end of the room, so I asked the boy next to me to tell me his name.  “Oh,” he said, looking curiously at my blushes, “you mean old mother F——.  He’s pious, you know; reads the Bible and funks at games and all that.”

There are some things which no self-respecting schoolboy can afford to forgive.  I had made up my mind that it was not pleasant to be an Ishmael, that as far as possible I would try to be an ordinary boy at my new school.  My experiences in London had taught me caution, and I was anxious not to compromise my position at the outset by making an unpopular friend.  So I nodded my head sagely in reply, and looked at my new-discovered hero with an air of profound contempt.

II

The days that followed were not so uncomfortable as my first grey impression of the place had led me to expect.  I proved to my own intense astonishment to be rather good at lessons, so that I got on well with the masters, and the boys were kind enough in their careless way.  I had plenty of pocket-money, and though I did not shine at Association football, for in London I had only watched the big boys playing Rugby, I was not afraid of being knocked about, which was all that was expected of a new boy.  Most of my embarrassments were due to the sensitiveness that made me dislike asking questions—­a weakness that was always placing me in false positions.  But my efforts to make myself agreeable to the boys were not unsuccessful, and while I looked in vain for anything like the romantic adventures of which my brother had spoken, I sometimes found myself almost enjoying my new life.

And then, as the children say in the streets of London, I woke up, and discovered that I was desperately home-sick.  Partly no doubt this was due to a natural reaction, but there were other more obvious causes.  For one thing my lavish hospitality had exhausted my pocket-money in the first three weeks, and I was ashamed to write home for more so soon.  This speedy end to my apparent wealth certainly made it easier for the boys to find out that I was not one of themselves, and they began to look at me askance and leave me out of their conversations.  I was made to feel once more that I had been born under a malignant star that did not allow me to speak or act as they did.  I had not their common sense, their blunt cheerfulness, their complete lack of sensibility, and while they resented my queerness they could not know how anxious I was to be an ordinary boy.  When I saw that they mistrusted me I was too proud to accept the crumbs of their society like poor mother F——­, and I withdrew myself into a solitude that gave me far too much time in which to examine my emotions.  I found out all the remote corners of the school in which it was possible to be alone, and when the other boys went for walks in the fields, I stayed in the churchyard close to the school, disturbing the sheep in their meditations among the tomb-stones, and thinking what a long time it would be before I was old enough to die.