"I say--I say!" the boy ejaculated, laughing.
"That's all right," Pemberton insisted. "Give me your written
rendering."
Morgan pushed a copybook across the table, and he began to read the page,
but with something running in his head that made it no sense. Looking up
after a minute or two he found the child's eyes fixed on him and felt in
them something strange. Then Morgan said: "I'm not afraid of the stern
reality."
"I haven't yet seen the thing you _are_ afraid of--I'll do you that
justice!"
This came out with a jump--it was perfectly true--and evidently gave
Morgan pleasure. "I've thought of it a long time," he presently resumed.
"Well, don't think of it any more."
The boy appeared to comply, and they had a comfortable and even an
amusing hour. They had a theory that they were very thorough, and yet
they seemed always to be in the amusing part of lessons, the intervals
between the dull dark tunnels, where there were waysides and jolly views.
Yet the morning was brought to a violent as end by Morgan's suddenly
leaning his arms on the table, burying his head in them and bursting into
tears: at which Pemberton was the more startled that, as it then came
over him, it was the first time he had ever seen the boy cry and that the
impression was consequently quite awful.
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