IX.

Wilfred's voice was harsh and unpleasant, and he looked at St. George in a way decidedly disagreeable.

George Edward went on whittling.

"Allen, it's no use to pretend that I'm not in an awful scrape by that little affair over at Sachem Hill. Goodness! why don't you speak to a chap?"

"I've nothing to say," observed St. George, proceeding with his work.

"Your tongue is ready enough generally," retorted Wilfred in a temper. "Now, if it suits you to be an oyster, it don't me. I'd rather you'd preach, infinitely."

"I don't do that," cried St. George, throwing down knife and stick, and turning a countenance by no means saintly upon his visitor. "You sha'n't stand there and throw that at me," he declared in a heat.

"I didn't say you did," said Wilfred coolly, "I only said I'd rather you would. So go on."

"It's none of my business what you do," cried St. George, "I'm not going to say a word about it."

"Confound you!" cried Wilfred irritably, flinging his long figure on the bench amongst the shavings, and pushing aside the tools that lay in the way. "Well, hear me, then—I'm in for it, and no mistake. Father is so angry just because I didn't report in time that night, that he threatens to pack me off to boarding-school. In fact, it's as good as decided, and I go next week. Now, you've got the whole."

He threw himself down to the floor as abruptly, plunged his hands in his pockets, and walked to the window.

St. George stood aghast, looking after him.

"Did your mother say so?" he asked at length, hoping, from his knowledge of the Bangs family, that a reprieve might yet arrive from the true head of affairs there.

"Yes," said Wilfred gloomily, "she's worse than father about it, and determined that he sha'n't give in." St. George looked pityingly at him.

"Well, it can't be helped," he said, longing to bestow something better.

"Of course it can't," cried Wilfred, whirling around; "a plague upon you for saying that."

"You wanted me to say something," contributed St. George.

"I know it. But why don't you say 'I told you so,' or, 'If you hadn't been a first-class idiot you'd have dropped that last confounded skate!' Then I could fight you. As it is now, there isn't anything to strike against."

"I'm as sorry as you are," said St. George dubiously, overlooking his ill-success in the matter of conversationally pleasing his friend; "whatever shall I do without you?" There was such genuine regret in his voice and manner, that Wilfred forgot his irritation, and began to look mollified.

"We've had awful good times," he said, coming up to the work-bench again.

"I should think we had," declared St. George in that hearty way of his that made all the boys willing to call him "capital."

"And it's perfectly horrid to begin again with new boys, I tell you. I'd rather run away to sea!" Wilfred's courage failing him once more, he looked the picture of despair.

St. George seeing it, left his own part of the trouble, and turned comforter:

"We're in for it, so all that is left is to face the music."

"Only half-yearly vacations," threw in Wilfred.

St. George's face fell.

"And no boxes from home allowed."

St. George had no words of comfort.

"And no extra 'outs' ever given for good behavior. If there were, I'd set up for a saint," added the victim savagely.

St. George was still silent.

"And all letters must pass through preceptor's hands. Oh! I've seen the bill," said Wilfred in the depths, "besides hearing father and mother read it a good half dozen times. It's just as bad as it can be—a regular old hole of a prison, is Doctor Gowan's Select School for Boys," throwing into his voice as much animosity as he was capable of.

St. George indulged in one or two uneasy turns about the room—his workshop, made out of a part of the generous garret that crowned the old house.

Was not this a terrible punishment indeed for a boy's misdemeanor? Too terrible, it seemed to him, and he felt a growing bitterness in his heart toward the parents who could plan and carry it out, and thus mar, not only the happiness of their own son, but that of a large circle of boys who were to lose a jolly companion.

But at last conscience spoke: "You are wrong. You know that Wilfred has done many things of late that have tried the patience of his father, his mother, and his teachers. You know that they have borne with his increasing unfaithfulness—that they have labored with the boy, hoping and praying for better things. You know they take this course feeling it best for him, and while it is hard for him and for you, it must be borne, realizing it to be the result of the boy's own course. You know all this, now give the case the justice in your own mind that is its due."

St. George turned around and frankly put out his hand.

"It's right you go," he said quite simply, "we'll all try to get along till vacation, old boy."

Wilfred, finding no pity forthcoming, put his hand within the brown palm, waiting for it.

"Keep the rest of the chums together," he begged.

"I'll do my best."

"And remember, we're to go to the same college."

"All right."

"And chum it there."

"All right."

"And I wish," Wilfred looked steadily into the blue eyes gazing into his, "I hadn't done it—dallied over those old skates—but minded father."

St. George bit his lip, but yet he would not preach.

"I'll give you my word it's the last time I'll ever get caught that way."

The blue eyes leaped into sudden fire, and Wilfred's hand was wrung hard.

"All right, old fellow."