“Because if it's only a game—we boys against the masters,” continued Dan, “then let's play according to rule. If we're here to learn—well, you've been in the class four months and I've just come, and I bet I know more Ovid than you do already.” Which was true.
So I thanked Dan and shared with him his key; and all the Latin I remember, for whatever good it may be to me, I take it I owe to him.
And knowledge of yet greater value do I owe to the good fortune that his sound mother wit was ever at my disposal to correct my dreamy unfeasibility; for from first to last he was my friend; and to have been the chosen friend of Dan, shrewd judge of man and boy, I deem no unimportant feather in my cap. He “took to” me, he said, because I was so “jolly green”—“such a rummy little mug.” No other reason would he ever give me, save only a sweet smile and a tumbling of my hair with his great hand; but I think I understood. And I loved him because he was big and strong and handsome and kind; no one but a little boy knows how brutal or how kind a big boy can be. I was still somewhat of an effeminate little chap, nervous and shy, with a pink and white face, and hair that no amount of wetting would make straight. I was growing too fast, which took what strength I had, and my journey every day, added to school work and home work, maybe was too much for my years. Every morning I had to be up at six, leaving the house before seven to catch the seven fifteen from Poplar station; and from Chalk Farm I had to walk yet another couple of miles. But that I did not mind, for at Chalk Farm station Dan was always waiting for me. In the afternoon we walked back together also; and when I was tired and my back ached—just as if some one had cut a piece out of it, I felt—he would put his arm round me, for he always knew, and oh, how strong and restful it was to lean against, so that one walked as in an easy-chair.
It seems to me, remembering how I would walk thus by his side, looking up shyly into his face, thinking how strong and good he was, feeling so glad he liked me, I can understand a little how a woman loves. He was so solid. With his arm round me, it was good to feel weak.
At first we were in the same class, the Lower Third. He had no business there. He was head and shoulders taller than any of us and years older. It was a disgrace to him that he was not in the Upper Fourth. The Doctor would tell him so before us all twenty times a week. Old Waterhouse (I call him “Old Waterhouse” because “Mister Waterhouse, M.A.,” would convey no meaning to me, and I should not know about whom I was speaking) who cordially liked him, was honestly grieved. We, his friends, though it was pleasant to have him among us, suffered in our pride of him. The only person quite contented was Dan himself. It was his way in all things. Others had their opinion of what was good for him. He had his own, and his own was the only opinion that ever influenced him. The Lower Third suited him. For him personally the Upper Fourth had no attraction.
And even in the Lower Third he was always at the bottom. He preferred it. He selected the seat and kept it, in spite of all allurements, in spite of all reproaches. It was nearest to the door. It enabled him to be first out and last in. Also it afforded a certain sense of retirement. Its occupant, to an extent screened from observation, became in the course of time almost forgotten. To Dan's philosophical temperament its practical advantages outweighed all sentimental objection.
Only on one occasion do I remember his losing it. As a rule, tiresome questions, concerning past participles, square roots, or meridians never reached him, being snapped up in transit by arm-waving lovers of such trifles. The few that by chance trickled so far he took no notice of. They possessed no interest for him, and he never pretended that they did. But one day, taken off his guard, he gave voice quite unconsciously to a correct reply, with the immediate result of finding himself in an exposed position on the front bench. I had never seen Dan out of temper before, but that moment had any of us ventured upon a whispered congratulation we would have had our head punched, I feel confident.
Old Waterhouse thought that here at last was reformation. “Come, Brian,” he cried, rubbing his long thin hands together with delight, “after all, you're not such a fool as you pretend.”
“Never said I was,” muttered Dan to himself, with a backward glance of regret towards his lost seclusion; and before the day was out he had worked his way back to it again.
As we were going out together, old Waterhouse passed us on the stairs: “Haven't you any sense of shame, my boy?” he asked sorrowfully, laying his hand kindly on Dan's shoulder.
“Yes, sir,” answered Dan, with his frank smile; “plenty. It isn't yours, that's all.”
He was an excellent fighter. In the whole school of over two hundred boys, not half a dozen, and those only Upper Sixth boys—fellows who came in top hats with umbrellas, and who wouldn't out of regard to their own dignity—could have challenged him with any chance of success. Yet he fought very seldom, and then always in a bored, lazy fashion, as though he were doing it purely to oblige the other fellow.
One afternoon, just as we were about to enter Regent's Park by the wicket opposite Hanover Gate, a biggish boy, an errand boy carrying an empty basket, and supported by two smaller boys, barred our way.
“Can't come in here,” said the boy with the basket.
“Why not?” inquired Dan.
“'Cos if you do I shall kick you,” was the simple explanation.
Without a word Dan turned away, prepared to walk on to the next opening. The boy with the basket, evidently encouraged, followed us: “Now, I'm going to give you your coward's blow,” he said, stepping in front of us; “will you take it quietly?” It is a lonely way, the Outer Circle, on a winter's afternoon.
“I'll tell you afterwards,” said Dan, stopping short.
The boy gave him a slight slap on the cheek. It could not have hurt, but the indignity, of course, was great. No boy of honour, according to our code, could have accepted it without retaliating.
“Is that all?” asked Dan.
“That's all—for the present,” replied the boy with the basket.
“Good-bye,” said Dan, and walked on.
“Glad he didn't insist on fighting,” remarked Dan, cheerfully, as we proceeded; “I'm going to a party tonight.”
Yet on another occasion, in a street off Lisson Grove, he insisted on fighting a young rough half again his own weight, who, brushing up against him, had knocked his hat off into the mud.
“I wouldn't have said anything about his knocking it off,” explained Dan afterwards, tenderly brushing the poor bruised thing with his coat sleeve, “if he hadn't kicked it.”
On another occasion I remember, three or four of us, Dan among the number, were on our way one broiling summer's afternoon to Hadley Woods. As we turned off from the highroad just beyond Barnet and struck into the fields, Dan drew from his pocket an enormous juicy-looking pear.
“Where did you get that from?” inquired one, Dudley.
“From that big greengrocer's opposite Barnet Church,” answered Dan. “Have a bit?”
“You told me you hadn't any more money,” retorted Dudley, in reproachful tones.
“No more I had,” replied Dan, holding out a tempting slice at the end of his pocket-knife.
“You must have had some, or you couldn't have bought that pear,” argued Dudley, accepting.
“Didn't buy it.”
“Do you mean to say you stole it?”
“Yes.”
“You're a thief,” denounced Dudley, wiping his mouth and throwing away a pip.