After Bill, having nothing better to do, John and Fluff went for a walk on the Sudbury road. They had played football before Bill, and each had realized his own awkwardness and insignificance. Poor Fluff, almost reduced to tears, with a big black bruise upon his white forehead, confessed that he preferred peaceful games--like croquet, and intended to apply for a doctor's certificate of exemption. Demanding sympathy, he received a slating.

"I play nearly as rotten a game as you do, Fluff," John said; "but Scaife expects us to be Torpids,[12] so we jolly well have to buck up.

That bruise over your eye has taken off your painted-doll look. Now, if you're going to blub, you'd better get behind that hedge."

Fluff exploded.

"This is a beastly hole," he cried. "And I loathe it. I'm going to write to my father and beg him to take me away."

"You ought to be at a girls' school."

"I hate everything and everybody. I thought you were my friend, the only friend I had."

John was somewhat mollified.

"I am your friend, but not when you talk rot."

"Verney, look here, if you'll be decent to me, I _will_ try to stick it out. I wish I was like you; I do indeed. I wish I was like Scaife. Why, I'd sooner be the Duffer, freckles and all, than myself."

John looked down upon the delicately-tinted face, the small, regular, girlish features, the red, quivering mouth. Suddenly he grasped that this was an appeal from weakness to strength, and that he, no older and but a little bigger than Fluff, had strength to spare, strength to shoulder burdens other than his own.

"All right," he said stiffly; "don't make such a fuss!"

"You'll have me for a friend, Verney?"

"Yes; but I ain't going to kiss your forehead to make it well, you know."

"May I call you John, when we're alone? And I wish you'd call me Esme, instead of that horrid 'Fluff.'"

John pondered deeply.

"Look here," he said. "You can call me John, and I'll call you Esme, when we're Torpids. And now, you'd better cut back to the house. I must think this all out, and I can't think straight when I look at you."

"May I call you John once?"

"You are the silliest idiot I ever met, bar none. Call me 'John,' or 'Tom Fool,' or anything; but hook it afterwards!"

"Yes, John, I will. You're the only boy I ever met whom I really wanted for a friend." He displayed a radiant face, turned suddenly, and ran off. John watched him, frowning, because Fluff was a good little chap, and yet, at times, such a bore!

He walked on alone, chewing the cud of a delightful experience; trying, not unsuccessfully, to recall some of Mr. Desmond's anecdotes. How proud Caesar was of his father! And the father, obviously, was just as proud of his son. What a pair! And if only Caesar were his friend! By Jove! It was rather a rum go, but John was as mad keen to call Caesar friend as poor Fluff to call John friend. Serious food for thought, this. "But I would never bother him," said John to himself, "as Fluff has bothered me, never!"

"Hullo, Verney!"

"Hullo!" said John.

Coincidence had thrust Caesar out of his thought and on to the narrow path in front of him.

"I'm not a ghost," said Caesar.

John hesitated.

"I was thinking of you," he confessed; "and then I heard your voice and saw you. It gave me a start. I say, it _was_ good of your governor to ask me."

"Hang my governor! He's the----"

Caesar closed his lips firmly, as if he feared that terrible adjectives might burst from them. John missed the sparkling smile, the gay glance of the eyes.

"What's up?" he demanded.

Caesar hesitated; looked at John, read, perhaps, the sympathy, the honest interest, possibly the affection, in the grey orbs which met his own so steadily.

"What's up?" he repeated. "Why, I'm not going into Damer's, after all."

"Oh!" said John.

"My governor has just told me. I came down here to curse and swear."

"Not going into Damer's? What rot--for you!"

"It is sickening. Look here, Verney; I feel like telling you about it. I know you won't go bleating all over the shop. No. I said to myself, 'Mum's the word,' but----"

John's heart beat, his body glowed, his grey eyes sparkled.

"It's like this," continued Caesar, after a slight pause. "Damer told the governor that two fellows he had expected to leave at the end of this term were staying on. The governor hinted that Damer added something about straining a point, and letting me in ahead of three other fellows; but the governor wouldn't listen to that----"

"Jolly decent of him," said John.

"Was it? In my opinion he ought to have thought of me first. All my brothers have been at Damer's. And he knew I'd set my heart on going there. Look how civil the fellows are to me. I've been in and out of the house like a tame cat. Confound it! if Damer did want to strain a point, why shouldn't he? The governor played his own game, not mine. What right has he to be so precious unselfish at my expense? I argued with him; but he can put his foot down. Let's cut all that. Of course, I don't want to stop in a beastly Small House for ever, and, if Damer's is closed to me, I should like Brown's, but Brown's is full too. And there are other good houses. But where--where do you think I _am_ going?"

"Reeds?"

"I don't call Reed's so bad. No; I'm going to Dirty d.i.c.k's. I'm coming to you."

"Oh, I say."

"Why, dash it all, you're grinning. I don't want to be a cad--Dirty d.i.c.k's is _your_ house--but--after Damer's! O Lord!"

The grin faded out of John's face. Caesar's loss outweighed his own gain.

"Your governor was a Manorite," he said slowly.

"Yes, in its best days; and he's always had a sneaking liking for it; but he knows, he knows, I say, that now it's rotten, and yet he sends me there. Why?"

"Ask another," said John.

"I asked him another, and what do you think he said, in that peculiar voice of his which always dries me up? 'Harry,' said he, 'when you're a little older and a good deal wiser, you'll be able to answer that question yourself.'"

John's face brightened. A glimmering of the truth shone out of the darkness. He tried to advance nearer to it, gropingly.

"I dare say----"