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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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felt certain that during the first period of leisure his friend would ask him to relate his adventures of the previous day. He now rejoiced in the possession of a small weapon with which he could prostrate his com- rade at the first signs of a cross-examination. He was master. It would now be he who could laugh and shoot the shafts of derision. The friend had, in a weak hour, spoken with sobs of his own death. He had delivered a mel- ancholy oration previous to his funeral, and had doubtless in the packet of letters, presented vari- ous keepsakes to relatives. But he had not died, and thus he had delivered himself into the hands of the youth. The latter felt immensely superior to his friend, but he inclined to condescension. He adopted toward him an air of patronizing good humor. His self-pride was now entirely restored. In the shade of its flourishing growth he stood with braced and self-confident legs, and since nothing could now be discovered he did not shrink from an encounter with the eyes of judges, and allowed no thoughts of his own to keep him from an attitude of manfulness. He had performed his mistakes in the dark, so he was still a man. Indeed, when he remembered his fortunes of yesterday, and looked at them from a distance he began to see something fine there. He had license to be pompous and veteranlike. His panting agonies of the past he put out of his sight. In the present, he declared to himself that it was only the doomed and the damned who roared with sincerity at circumstance. Few but they ever did it. A man with a full stomach and the respect of his fellows had no business to scold |
