excuse, but to cool my brain, and regain, if possible, a sufficient
degree of composure to meet the family at the morning meal without
exciting inconvenient remarks. If I got a wetting, that, in conjunction
with a pretended over-exertion before breakfast, might excuse my sudden
loss of appetite; and if a cold ensued, the severer the better--it would
help to account for the sullen moods and moping melancholy likely to
cloud my brow for long enough.

CHAPTER XIII

'My dear Gilbert, I wish you would try to be a little more amiable,' said
my mother one morning after some display of unjustifiable ill-humour on
my part. 'You say there is nothing the matter with you, and nothing has
happened to grieve you, and yet I never saw anyone so altered as you
within these last few days. You haven't a good word for anybody--friends
and strangers, equals and inferiors--it's all the same. I do wish you'd
try to check it.'

'Check what?'

'Why, your strange temper. You don't know how it spoils you. I'm sure a
finer disposition than yours by nature could not be, if you'd let it have
fair play: so you've no excuse that way.'

While she thus remonstrated, I took up a book, and laying it open on the
table before me, pretended to be deeply absorbed in its perusal, for I
was equally unable to justify myself and unwilling to acknowledge my
errors; and I wished to have nothing to say on the matter. But my
excellent parent went on lecturing, and then came to coaxing, and began
to stroke my hair; and I was getting to feel quite a good boy, but my
mischievous brother, who was idling about the room, revived my corruption
by suddenly calling out,--'Don't touch him, mother! he'll bite! He's a
very tiger in human form. I've given him up for my part--fairly disowned
him--cast him off, root and branch. It's as much as my life is worth to
come within six yards of him. The other day he nearly fractured my skull
for singing a pretty, inoffensive love-song, on purpose to amuse him.'

'Oh, Gilbert! how could you?' exclaimed my mother.

'I told you to hold your noise first, you know, Fergus,' said I.

'Yes, but when I assured you it was no trouble and went on with the next
verse, thinking you might like it better, you clutched me by the shoulder
and dashed me away, right against the wall there, with such force that I
thought I had bitten my tongue in two, and expected to see the place
plastered with my brains; and when I put my hand