Radley left us standing by his desk, while at his leisure he finished his correcting; then, still without looking up, he ordered: 

“Hand over the letters.”

A little doggedly I passed over the single sheet of paper feeling some absurd satisfaction that, since he evidently thought there were several sheets involved, his uncanny knowledge was at least wrong in one particular.  Doe, on my right hand, turned redder and redder to see the paper going beneath the master’s eye, and made a few nervous grimaces.  Radley read the correspondence pitilessly; and, with his hard mouth unrelaxed, turned first on Doe, as though sizing him up, and then on me.  He stared at my face till I felt fidgety, and my mind, which always in moments of excitement ran down most ridiculous avenues, framed the sentence:  “Don’t stare, because it’s rude,” at which involuntary thought I scarcely restrained a nervous titter.  After this critical inspection, Radley murmured: 

“Yes, talk your quarrel over.  The bands of friendship mustn’t snap at a breath.”

As he said this, Doe edged closer to me, and I wondered if Radley was a decent chap.

“But why do you sign yourself ’S.  Ray’?”

Now my blush outclassed anything Doe had yet produced, and I looked in dumb confusion towards my friend.  Radley refrained from forcing the question, but pursued with brutal humour: 

“Well, there’s nothing like suffering together to cement a friendship.  Doe, put out your knuckles.”

Radley was ever a man of surprises.  This was the first time he had invited the use of our knuckles for his punitive practices.  Doe proffered four of those on the back of his narrow, cream-coloured right hand.  He did it readily enough, but trembled a little, and the blush that had disappeared returned at a rush to his neck.  Radley took his ruler, and struck the knuckles with a very sharp rap.  Doe’s lips snapped together and remained together,—­and that was all.

“And Ray,” invited Radley.

I offered the back of my right hand, and, copying my friend, kept my lips well closed.  My eyes had shut themselves nervously, when I heard a clatter, and realised that Radley had dropped his ruler.  Leaving my right hand extended for punishment, I stooped down, picked up the ruler with my left, and gave it back to Radley.  Perhaps the blood that now coloured my face was partly due to this stooping.  Radley smiled.  It was his habit to become suddenly gentle after being hard.  One second, his hard mouth would frame hard things; another second, and his grey eyes would redress the balance.

“Ray, you disarm me,” he said.  “Go to your seats, both of you.”

Back we walked abreast to our places, Doe palpably annoyed that he had not been the one to pick up the ruler.  He was a romantic youth and would have liked to occupy my picturesque and rather heroic position.

“Why didn’t you let me pick up the ruler?” he whispered.  “You knew I wanted to.”