sure: it's a trick I have. I begin thinking of things, and then--"

"Thinking, I suppose, of how it would feel to be in a collision, or what
it would be like to leap such a parapet as that and find ourselves
dropping--dropping--into space? But you shouldn't, really. It isn't
healthy in a boy like you: and if you'll listen to one who has known
what nerves are, it may too easily grow to mean something worse."

"But it isn't that--exactly," he protested; "though of course all that
comes into it. I'm not a--a funk, sir! I was thinking more of the
--of what would come _afterwards_, you know."

"Oh dear!" I groaned to myself. "It's worse than ever: here's a little
prig worrying about his soul. I shouldn't advise you to trouble about
that, either," I said aloud.

"But I don't _trouble_ about it." He hesitated, and stumbled into a
burst of confidence. "You see, I'm no good at games--athletics and that
sort of thing--"

Again he stopped, and I nodded to encourage him.

"And I'm no swell at schoolwork, either. I went to school late, and
after home it all seems so _young_--if you understand?"

I thought I did. With his polite grown-up manner I could understand his
isolation among the urchins, the masters, and all the interests of
an ordinary school.

"But my father--you know him, don't you?--he's disappointed about it.