These were oases in his desert, but, as a general rule, the boy looked
thin and pale, and as though he had a secret which depressed him, which
no doubt he had, but for which I cannot blame him. He rose, in spite of
himself, higher in the school, but fell ever into deeper and deeper
disgrace with the masters, and did not gain in the opinion of those boys
about whom he was persuaded that they could assuredly never know what it
was to have a secret weighing upon their minds. This was what Ernest
felt so keenly; he did not much care about the boys who liked him, and
idolised some who kept him as far as possible at a distance, but this is
pretty much the case with all boys everywhere.
At last things reached a crisis, below which they could not very well go,
for at the end of the half year but one after his aunt's death, Ernest
brought back a document in his portmanteau, which Theobald stigmatised as
"infamous and outrageous." I need hardly say I am alluding to his school
bill.
This document was always a source of anxiety to Ernest, for it was gone
into with scrupulous care, and he was a good deal cross-examined about
it. He would sometimes "write in" for articles necessary for his
education, such as a portfolio, or a dictionary, and sell the same, as I
have explained, in order to eke out his pocket money, probably to buy
either music or tobacco.
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